Chapter Five - Letter One
The stress from dealing with Him was building. The drivers were starting to divide up into groups. Everyone's safe place had been ripped out from underneath them. I know I was feeling it. I was drinking more than I used to. I had lost my concentration on the job, which is not a good thing, if you’re mixing gas, diesel, kerosene, and other products in a five compartment fuel tanker. Things had gotten so out of hand that drivers were looking to move to other companies. But no one would. The only way to get hired on when I got hired on was to wait until someone died or they added a truck. I was an added truck, so I really had gotten lucky. No one was ready to give it up just yet, and that meant you had to deal with what was being tossed at us. It also meant that the tension grew day by day, the locking of horns by a group of drivers that wanted to be the best there was. Those that had pride in their jobs, trucks and safety record against a man who had no problems with telling them just how much a driver was worth to him, a dime a dozen.
I don't know exactly what brought it on. Maybe it was stress or the alcohol. All I knew was my back was starting to hurt again. It was a good three years since my first back surgery and I had been doing awesome. But something had changed and I was really starting to hurt again. So I asked one day to slow down just a bit to give myself a chance to recoup. I guess the new management took this as I did not like the way they were doing things and just wanted to foul things up. Whatever they thought, they had no intensions of letting up, and kept my daily loads just as tight as they had been. About three days later. I finally said I needed to go see the doctor. The pain was back for sure and I knew enough about back pain to know when to quit. So they sent me to the company doctor. Nice guy. He had a pretty nurse. He called my boss and told him I was lying. Go figure.
Wow! Who would have thought of that? During the exam I explained to the doctor where and when things hurt, like I'm about to tell you now. When I sit, my lower back starts to tighten leading to sharp pains radiating down my left leg. The longer I sit, the worse it gets. If I continue on without taking time to relieve the tension, it will eventually get to where I will not be able to walk. I went on to explain to him that the way to fix it was just a little bit of time. I needed no pain medicines and that aspirin usually took care of any problems I had. I then told him that sitting was out of the question. I could stand and do things or I had to be lying down. There was no in between. I guess he just could not understand these things. He must have figured that after all I had gone through a few years earlier; I had learned nothing about how to take care of myself. It was just like a doctor a few years earlier that told me "If you were hurting that bad, you would stop." I'm thinking that guy did not have a wife and a child to feed. Working people like me, we just don't stop because it hurts. We stop just about a second before death sets in then complain about the delay, so much for work ethics.
The doctor did put me on light duty. I spent the next two weeks in the office with Him. I really never believed in conspiracy theories before this. But, I do now. One day, just to let you get a feeling on how this time went by, he walked into the office and look directly at me. He said he had the perfect sit down job for me, should be a piece of cake. That's what I went and did. I sat through my back aching for relief while he sat with a grin on his face. He was intentionally trying to hurt me, trying to break my back, so to say. I had never thought anyone could be so cruel, but yet there he was. I tried to complain to the owner. I even did some research and took him the medical papers I printed out, but got nowhere with it. I did, however, manage to get my back, back into shape. The bending required to drop gas was something I had not been doing and that helped a bunch. I walked every day on my lunch hour, and snuck out into the warehouse where I found a place to stretch out for a while. So, despite Him's best efforts, and during the two weeks of light duty, I was able to recoup and get back to truck driving.
My back was now fixed, but my attitude was shot straight to hell and me with a loaded gas tanker. Isn't the world a crazy place? It's a good thing I'm not that crazy because I had a few good ideas as to where to park that first load of gas. Of course, it is nice to think about, but not a good thing to do. But, I was still pissed as all get out. Life for me had turned from a professional problem that should have had a professional answer to one that was now personal. We, as a group of drivers, had been hauling more gas with fewer accidents than any company in the Atlanta area, and they were going to treat us like this. I know I started out here staying as legal as I could. But, the truth was some of the things we were doing just did not measure up to that standard. With the pay being great, home every night, retirement, I found myself looking over the little grey area, things as you might say. Like about a month before I had hurt my back, everyone’s was standing around laughing at the phone call from the Atlanta police officer that claimed I was in the third lane on Interstate Two-Eighty-Five running so fast with a load of gas, that he was unable to catch up with me before I had gotten clean out of sight. It was a good laugh. It was also very true.
I realized that once again I had fallen into the trap. The only difference was that this time, instead of being treated like I was someone, it was being made very clear that I was no one. Things eventually became so bad that one day I was under the rack loading my truck. Instead of thinking about what I was doing, I was thinking about what was going on. That's when I goofed, with the pressurized hose that was filling my tanker with gas. I just walked over and started to unhook it from my truck. Thousands of pounds of pressurized gas filled my face and covered my body. Luckily, I was able to clamp it back down. But, the damage was done. My skin was already starting to burn, and I knew from others’ previous experiences that my nuts were already starting to cook. So I ran to my cab and took the hand lotion I kept there just in case it ever happened to me and, and just crammed a hand full of lotion down my pants before my sack had a chance to soak in the gasoline. Now I was pissed.
This little incident bought me a few days at the house to heal. It’s a funny thing, the doctor didn't think I was lying about this. So I had a little time to think. Why was I once again breaking every law in the book just to be treated like crap? No way could I go on like this and survive. No one could. I called a trucking organization to see what could be done just to be told that if I did not want to deal with it, I needed to just get out of the business. Screw him. So I made two decisions on my own; one was to run legal, period. No more illegal hundred thousand pounds of diesel to special customers. No more speeding. No more breaking rules of any kind for this company, the end. I was pissed. The second decision was to write a letter to the Georgia Department of Public Safety outlining every little illegal detail we were being forced to do if we wanted to keep our jobs. Doing these things of one's own will is one thing. What we were doing for this company and then being turned on like we were, to have him specifically pick jobs he knew would hurt me was another. I had had enough.
For three months I waited. I knew somehow that something would happen, and it did. I came in one day, and the place was crawling with Department of Transportation inspectors. Going over every detail of how our trucks were being run. All anyone knew was someone had wrote a letter, and here they were. It finally came around that I was asked if I wrote it. I mean, with the way things were between management and myself it had to be clear. I was totally screwing up their plans by just staying legal. So I did not figure it would do any good trying to hide the fact that I wrote the letter. Things did change around that company. No more speeding. Trucks started getting the repairs they needed, and legal weight on all loads. I was told, unofficially of course, if I had any common sense at all; I would not be caught in the parking lot alone. That's if I wanted to live a long and fruitful life.
It's a funny thing, things like this, some totally hated me for doing what I did. I met one guy that used to be my best friend in a grocery store one day with his wife. He grabbed her by the hand and pulled her away. Would not even look me in the eye. I always wonder if he did the same thing when he ran into one of the whores he would stop by to see while he was out on a run. Later I heard they divorced. While others, in the darkness of night, would come up and shake my hand, telling me how proud they were to know someone with the balls to finally stand up for what is right. They knew and understood that what was going on was leading to something very bad. They just did not know what to do about it. I knew my days were numbered, and walking through a dark parking lot searching the dark shadows was not really all that appealing to me. In a month or so some excuse would be made and I would get fired so I just moved on. A week later I got the news that the one I call Him was fired. Yup, I smiled about that. Go figure.
