with the boom extended, tilt the forks so the scrap could slide out,
raining down into the trailer with a tremendous clamor. The trailer
was a fifty-foot flatbed rigged for scrapping, essentially a giant bucket.
Its walls were made of thick iron sheets that reached eight feet from
the bed. The trailer could hold between fifteen and twenty bins, or
about forty thousand pounds of iron.
I found Dad in the field, lighting a fire to burn the insulation from a
tangle of copper wires. I told him the bin was ready, and he walked
back with me and climbed into the loader. He waved at the trailer.
“We’ll get more in if you settle the iron after it’s been dumped. Hop in.”
I didn’t understand. He wanted to dump the bin with me in it? “I’ll
climb up after you’ve dumped the load,” I said.
“No, this’ll be faster,” Dad said. “I’ll pause when the bin’s level with
the trailer wall so you can climb out. Then you can run along the wall
and perch on top of the cab until the dump is finished.”
I settled myself on a length of iron. Dad jammed the forks under the
bin, then lifted me and the scrap and began driving, full throttle,
toward the trailer’s head. I could barely hold on. On the last turn, the
bucket swung with such force that a spike of iron was flung toward me.
It pierced the inside of my leg, an inch below my knee, sliding into the
tissue like a knife into warm butter. I tried to pull it out but the load
had shifted, and it was partially buried. I heard the soft groaning of
hydraulic pumps as the boom extended. The groaning stopped when
the bin was level with the trailer. Dad was giving me time to climb onto
the trailer wall but I was pinned. “I’m stuck!” I shouted, only the growl
of the loader’s engine was too loud. I wondered if Dad would wait to
dump the bin until he saw me sitting safely on the semi’s cab, but even
as I wondered I knew he wouldn’t. Time was still stalking.
The hydraulics groaned and the bin raised another eight feet.
Dumping position. I shouted again, higher this time, then lower, trying
to find a pitch that would pierce through the drone of the engine. The
bin began its tilt, slowly at first, then quickly. I was pinned near the
back. I wrapped my hands around the bin’s top wall, knowing this
would give me a ledge to grasp when the bin was vertical. As the bin
continued to pitch, the scrap at the front began to slide forward, bit by
bit, a great iron glacier breaking apart. The spike was still embedded in
my leg, dragging me downward. My grip had slipped and I’d begun to
slide when the spike finally ripped from me and fell away, smashing