Continued…
Cheers, I hope everyone is well, this fine Martin Luther King
Day.
So…I was trying to rush and
finish up a job on a Wednesday night. I only had to install new flooring in the
closet in the foyer and put the downstairs of this house back .together. My
phone’s clock was reading 8:30. I would never finish before 10;30 pm. I cleaned
up and went home. Thursday would be a great day. A quick two hour morning and
install 10 square feet of hardwood, sweep and clean, put rooms back together
and get paid.
The universe had other plans
for Johnny that fine spring morning. My workout was great that morning. It was
warm outside. I ran to the gym, did my workout, and ran back to the warehouse
to get my truck and go to work.
The sun was shining. The first
cut I had to make was a little L-shaped cut on a 18 inch piece of oak flooring.
There was a tiny crack all the way through the wood that I failed to see, but
the table saw found immediately. It sucked the wood in fast almost to my hand
and then it kicked back. And then my the wood and my hand were slammed down on
top of the blade. It didn't hurt. I felt heat. I didn't see blood. I was fine.
I bent down to turn the saw off and regain composure and by the on/off switch
shining in the sunlight lay my pinky. I held back a scream. I didn't hold back
the regurgitation as I looked at my hand and saw a mangled mess of skin blood
and bone. My ring finger hung to the floor on two little strands of nerve. My
middle finger knuckle was gone and I held my pinky to my chest like it was a
treasured heirloom.
I would never play guitar
again. NF had a tour booked in 6 weeks. What am I going to do? I cant do
anything! I reached for a cigarette but I remembered they fell out of my pocket
when I measured the closet. I walked out of the garage to the fron of the house
where the homeowner was working. My boss was slowly pulling up . He stopped at
the end of the driveway and most likely sat finishing his third joint of the
day and trying to make sense of the scene that was unrolling before his eyes.
I say to the homeowner
Call 911
Did you cut yourself?
Yes, it’s bad.
We have band aids!
You had better have a thousand. Just
call 911.
He gets down off of the ladder
and looks at my hand for the first time. His skin goes pale. He starts
screaming for his wife, for the phone. I am not sure if it is in English. His
words do not make sense. I start screaming for him to go into the closet and get
my cigarettes. I tell him he had better do this or I ma going to go and bleed
all over everything. I want a smoke. Damn. I think I might have been in shock.
Scott, my boss tells me, that
he sees the wife come out with the phone and my smokes. Her and her husband
start running back and forth in the lawn with the phone like a couple of chickens
in a coop. I am walking back and forth with them screaming at them for a
cigarette. He finally comes running because he realized that I had got hurt. He
says the first thing I say to him is get me a fucking cigarette.
I hear the horns of an
ambulance. I still have not smoked. The medics get out with a stretcher. I wont
sit down I tell them I want to smoke. They get me a cigarette and cut my
favorite shirt off of me.
NO ONE IS PAYING ATTENTION…
They strap a tourniquet around my arm, slap my arm, slide a needle and push.
FUCK. My feet have not felt this good in ten years. I look at the guy and say
hey, I know my hand is mangled, but my body if feeling good. Wow. I forget this
feeling. You had better give me another.
The surgeries, the healing,
the head games I played with my self last about two and a half years. The
compensation wasn't enough to keep bills at bay. I was already in a financial
downward spiral from not knowing how to pay bills or manage money and this
accident and some very untimely deaths brought on the beginning of the end of
my property ownership, my bands, my friendships, my recovery, my life as it was
that fine Thursday morning in the Spring of 2007.
To be continued…
No comments:
Post a Comment