Broken: A story of hope and forgiveness

by Kevin Mark Smith

  Chapter 1

  Triage

  Nathanial Buford, or “Nate” everyone called him, friends and otherwise, was a crusty old man, at least the side he let strangers see, and his looks matched his attitude. He was big—tall and rotund—with a poorly groomed grayish beard to go with his sloppy, medium-length and graying hairdo; he looked like, as his friends put it, “Kenny Rogers with a hangover.” He dressed like a cowboy most of the time, with black, worn-down, round-toed cowboy-styled work boots, various light-colored long-sleeved button-up shirts, and blue Wrangler cowboy-cut jeans—the only brand and style any true cowboy would be caught dead in, as far as he was concerned. Nate had been driving the I-35 run between Wichita, Kansas, and Dallas, Texas, for the last ten years of his twenty-five year career with the Alameda Trucking Company. Crusty as he was, he was still a loyal company man. Up until most recently, he would get so defensive of his employer that he often came close to blows with younger drivers when they bad-mouthed the company.

  As he drove his rig yet again along a highway he had all but memorized, mileposts, rest stops and all, he listened to a Hank Williams, Jr. song blaring on the radio, with staticy bursts of trucker talk from the CB radio piercing the classic country vocalizations of Bocephus every so often. He pondered his future as his attention alternated between driving his rig, the periodic interruption of familiar lyrics on the radio, and trucker talk on the CB.

  Twenty-five years of being a dependable company man, and for what? He was being forced to do what he dreaded more than anything else in the world: retire from a job he relished and decide how to spend the rest of his life. He could not bear the thought of not driving a big rig, so total retirement was hard to fathom, and sitting around in his easy chair was unthinkable. The inevitability of such a traumatic change took its toll, and he hoped that the day would come and go without anything happening at all, as if his unwavering loyalty to Alameda would compel the powers that be to change the company’s retirement policy just for him. But he knew better. The day would come and he would be hung out to dry. Even the better-than-average pension he would draw did little to allay his concerns.

  Nate found himself counting the days to retirement, wondering what else he could do to provide him with all that he wanted and desired, which wasn’t much. All he desired was his monotonous, predictable, and somewhat boring job to go to day after day until the end of his days, with fishing and time with his wife sprinkled in throughout. Alameda was nirvana. It gave him all that and then some. He also made good money, and the work provided no chance for boredom since it was sandwiched between the times he spent with his wife and at the lake. He could see himself growing bored of the wife and the fishing if they took his job away—when they took his job away. At least he wouldn’t sacrifice much income. His pension promised 80 percent of his salary and full health insurance benefits.

  It was the thought of the inevitable change in his routine that really bothered him. He went from the loyal employee ready to fight for the company to an embittered old man with little more than a piece of cake and bowl of ice cream. The event was his twenty-fifth anniversary/retirement party.

  “We are honored to offer you the option of retiring now after so many years with us,” his boss told him as the forty or so employees of the company enjoyed their punch, cake, and ice cream, laughing and chatting as if Nate’s retirement was a good thing for everyone. It was the first time he saw his boss for what he was: a slick college man who cared only about the bottom line, company profits. “Offering a retirement package” was really just a way to cut off experienced drivers like Nate. It was really all about trimming the payroll of high salaried drivers. He even doubted that the pension would last for long, that he’d be stuck with social security benefits and whatever he’d saved in his 401k.

  The boss’s insincere comment had lingered as Nate stuck his fork into the cake, lifted a bite to his mouth, and glared at Jack Strong’s Wall Street apparel. A trucking company run by a three-piece-suited monkey, he thought, as he lifted his paper cup to his mouth to wash down the cake he just ingested. Times have changed. Nate had a hard time seeing forced retirement as honorable, despite the pension and the accompanying life of leisure that came with it. My best friends died after retirement, he thought as he swished the punch in his mouth before swallowing. I’m next.

  After his thoughts shifted back to the task as hand, he reflected further on his boss. What a self-serving little twerp Jack is. He downshifted to slow his rig down for a traffic tie-up he saw a few hundred yards away. He further reflected on the moment the positive impressions he had of his boss were shattered: How can he punish my loyalty like that?

  What a jerk . . . Whoa, bud, what’s going on. . .He caught a glimpse of a jogger—at least it appeared to be a jogger, with running shorts and t-shirt—waving his arms frantically. He continued the laborious process of downshifting through numerous gears so he could slow down to a safe speed before applying the brakes.

  In a few short moments he had pulled his rig to the shoulder and climbed down from the cab and made his way to the jogger in distress. Nate almost always offered a hand to those in need, especially other travelers. “What’s wrong?” he asked the jogger in his deep, gravelly voice after walking the full length of his truck and trailer and a few extra dozen-or-so yards to get to him and whatever it was that upset him.

  “It’s some guy left for dead,” Landon replied, as frantic in voice as he was in appearance from several hundred feet away.

  Nate walked to the hitchhiker’s side to verify Landon’s assessment as his truck driver’s Good Samaritan complex and his long-ago Army training kicked in. Before entering the civilian world forty years nefore, he had served as a medic for the 101st Airborne Division of the United States Army. He could field dress life-threatening wounds in his sleep at one time in his life; now, he hoped he could recall at least enough to determine the extent of the man’s injuries. He removed his cigarette-lighter-sized Mini Mag Lite from its holster on the left side of his belt and twisted its end until the batteries ignited the halogen bulb. He crouched down beside the injured man and scanned the body with his eyes and light from head to toe. My Gosh, he thought after following up his scan with a few pokes and prods. This boy’s got problems.

  His brief examination revealed a bone protruding out of the skin near the stranger’s right elbow, eyes so swollen they made his eye slits appear to be nothing more than lines drawn on paper with bulging tomato skins oozing out the edges, and bruises covering almost every inch of his exposed skin—arms, face, and neck included. Nate stood up, pulling a cellular telephone out of his shirt pocket as he did, and punched 9-1-1 into the flip-phone-styled telephone’s Lilliputian keypad with his enormous left index finger. He doubted that an ambulance would make much of a difference; the man was as close to dead as he’d seen since the numerous mortally wounded soldiers he’d personally tried in vain to save in ‘Nam.

  Waiting for an ambulance and police cruiser to arrive, Nate forgot about his career dilemma. It seemed petty now. He was alive, blessed with a family that loved him, and living a relatively healthy life—not including the half-a-pack-a-day cigarette habit he held onto—with no legitimate concern in the world. Without a doubt the young man at his feet was far worse off than he, so he made a vow to himself to stop being ungrateful. Life had been good and retirement might not be so bad after all.

  Landon silently thanked God for his circumstances, too. Hard work would do him good. Ted wouldn’t break him, just make him stronger, and his future was much brighter than the beaten and battered man’s who was dying at his feet.

  “You mind if I borrow that?” he asked Nate after he finished talking to the 9-1-1 operator.

  “Sure,” Nate replied as he handed him the phone.

  Landon punched in his aunt and uncle’s telephone number. It rang once. “Hello?” Alice answered.

  “This is Landon.”

  At first she was shocked, knowing that her nephew didn’t ow
n a cell phone, and even if he did, she was certain he wouldn’t have it with him on his jog. “You okay?”

  “Yes, I’m fine, but I’ll be a little late.”

  “Why?”

  “I’ll tell you later,” he said, not wanting to alarm her further. “Aunt Alice?”

  “Yes.”

  “Thanks for letting me stay with you.” He silently rehearsed his next words, not wanting to be misunderstood, or to have his sweet aunt take it the wrong way. The last thing he wanted was for Uncle Ted to think he actually liked him. “Please tell Uncle Ted that I’m grateful for the job and everything he’s done for me.”

  Just then the ambulance and a couple of police cars arrived, sirens blazing. “I gotta go.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Nothing. I’ll tell you about it when I get home.”

  “Okay. Be safe.”

  “I will.”

  Alice placed the phone back in its cradle just over the mini-desk that was built into the kitchen wall to the right of the sink. She walked around the partition separating the kitchen from the living room. “That’s weird,” she told Ted, who was transfixed on a Texas Rangers baseball game.

  Not breaking eye contact with the TV, he replied, “What?”

  “Landon told me to thank you for his job.”

  “Yeah,” he chuckled, still watching the TV. “That is weird.” That boy’s got too much time on his hands.