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Ditch
driving was a pretty stupid idea.
It was Friday, a payday,
and six of us were in a pickup truck: three in the cab
and three in the bed. We were driving down the highway.
I was with the guys who were walking across the
street in Easton when three farm boys in a pickup honked
and shouted at them. My compatriots yanked them out of the
truck, beat them up, and left them lying in the street with
the truck still running. One of these guys was a big strong
linebacker type named Spencer. The next summer he got into trouble
and was asked to join the Marines.
He was sitting against the center of the tailgate . I was in the corner of
the bed on the driver side, right in back of the cab. 6'6" Loke
was in the pickup bed right behind the rear cab window. We
were cruising down the highway when C.O. slid open the rear
window. "We are going ditch driving". Huh?
Suddenly the truck slowed slightly and veered down into the
ditch at about 40 miles an hour. Really scary. The truck
climbed out as gravel sprayed everywhere. I wedge myself into
the corner of the truck bed. We went in again, only this
time we went over a field drive that the driver didn't see.
A field drive is a little earthen bridge that allow tractors and
combines to get from the road to a field. It caused us to go airborne.
From the back of the bed Spencer
traveled in a arc from back to front and hit Loke in the chest. This
drove Loke's arms and elbows backwards and they cracked out the rear
truck window. I have no doubt that Spence would have been killed or
paralyzed from crashing head first into the rear windown except for
Loke's absorbing the impact and protecting his head. Although I had
wedged myself
in good, my ankle
went into the air and banged down sharply on the truck bed.
We had jumped the field drive and now come to a halt on the
other side. I thought my ankle was broken, but it turned
out to be fine. Loke's back was hurt and he ended up going
home and staying away from work for a week.
I paced off the jump, and it was
someting like 25 feet. The driver may have been the toughest guy
on our crew, but geez what an idiot.
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