Tim was a couple of years older than me, but we spent a
great deal of time together. At this
point, he had his driver’s license, and a car.
Riding with him could be somewhat life-threatening, but I survived. He had a job cleaning out the stalls at a horse
stable, a stable with a huge barn with multiple stalls. The job entailed driving a tractor around the
barn pulling a manure spreader. At each
stall, he would scoop out the horse waste, being careful to not overly disturb the
horses, and then drive the spreader out into a field to spread it around. Following that, he needed to fill a wheelbarrow
with the sawdust from a giant pile in the middle of the barn, carry it to each
stall, and spread it down under the horse to absorb the next round of waste…until
the next day when the process was repeated.
The deal with helping Tim out was that it meant he could get
it done much quicker if we tag teamed it.
He scooped out the stalls and drove the tractor. Then, I would spread out the new
sawdust. I would have loved to have
driven the tractor; driving anything with an engine at fifteen was cool and fun…even
if it was only pulling a pile of horse crap.
But, no. I drove (pushed) the
wheelbarrow. I think he let me try it
out once, but actually running it was not going to be an option for me.
For some reason that escapes me now, I agreed to help him
clean nasty horse waste out of all those stalls…for free…from the goodness of
my heart…just because we were friends.
What did I get out of the deal?
Read on, my friend. Read on.
We drove on out there.
He showed me the barn…the stalls…the horses…the pile of sawdust…and the
tractor. I don’t recall the make of the
tractor, only that it was engaged with a clutch. You depressed it to stop, and you let it up
to make the thing go. The more you let
it up, the faster it went. All the way
out was one speed…not fast, but quick enough…and very powerful.
The work started normally enough. He scooped out a few stalls, and I started
the process of replacing the sawdust. My
process worked like this: Fill a barrow
full, unlock the stall, dump the sawdust, push the barrow out, spread the dust
around, close and latch the stall, start again on the next one. Generally, when I pushed the wheelbarrow out,
it was facing directly away from me, and the handles would be sort of wrapped
around my legs as I turned to latch the stall door. On one occasion, that became problematic.
One thing I hadn’t mentioned was Tim’s tendency for
horseplay…no pun intended…and his slightly dangerous sense of humor.
Anyway, at this one stall which was situated on a corner, I
ran headlong into that precarious idea of fun.
The stall was the first one on the right as you entered the main
doors. The gate to the horse was facing
away from the barn door. To the right
was a drive that led to the fields where you dumped the manure. I had dumped the new sawdust, had pushed the
barrow out as normal, and was busy latching the door with my back to Tim on the
tractor; the handles of the wheelbarrow wrapping my legs. I heard the engine start to rev up. I turned to look. That was when my life was almost sacrificed
in the name of horse-crap.
Tim thought it would be hilarious to scare the poop out of
me with the tractor. When I turned to
look at him, he was driving that thing directly at me and acting like he was
planning to hit me with it. That was
when his foot slipped off the clutch and the tractor lurched forwarded and
slammed into the barrow. It drove the
little cart directly at me, trapping my legs inside the handles! Obviously, the power of the tractor was not
going to be halted by the wooden handles of that cart, so I dove. I dove to my left as fast as I could, and the
tractor continued until it drove the wheelbarrow all the way through the stall
door, breaking it loose!
At this point, I didn’t yet know that this was all an
accident. All I knew was that the guy
who I thought was my best friend had just nearly crushed me with a tractor. Was he going to back away from the stall and
come at me again? I didn’t know. My leg was hurt. I crawled…as fast as I could… I crawled out
of the barn and rolled to the left so that he couldn’t get me directly. I was scared, and adrenaline was coursing
through my system. Flopping over on my
back, I grabbed my left knee with both hands and hoped he wasn’t going to come
after me again.
Sometime later, I’m not sure if it was thirty seconds or
several minutes, Tim came running out of the door looking for me.
“Mike! Are you
okay? Are you hurt?”
“What did you do?!
Why did you hit me?!” I nearly
screamed at him.
“I’m sorry. It was an
accident. I was just trying to scare
you, but the clutch slipped. Are you
okay?”
“I don’t know. I
think I’m okay, but my knee hurts pretty bad.”
“Oh, >bleep I’m
gonna get fired.”
“Is the horse okay?”
I asked.As it turned out, he had driven the tractor all the way into the stall door breaking the latch, but other than being frightened, the horse was fine. Tim helped me up, and I hobbled into the barn with him. I wasn’t bleeding, but I had hit my knee really hard on the handle of the wheelbarrow as I dove out of the way of the hurtling tractor.
Standing safely out of the way, I watched as he backed the tractor away from the stall. We both examined the damage, and Tim decided he could fix it up pretty well. He was hoping no one would notice the cracked wood after he nailed it back together. With an uninjured horse and a repairable stall, the only remaining factor that could lead to his dismissal was my injury.
“Don’t tell anyone. Okay?” He pleaded.
“Tim, I’m hurt pretty bad,” I said. “I can barely walk straight. Someone is going to ask what happened to me.”
“So make up something.”
“You know I won’t lie.” And I didn’t. I suppose I had to have been the most honest fifteen year old boy in Muncie in 1977. “If someone asks me what happened, I’m not going to lie about it.”
“Please, Mike. I really don’t want to get fired.”
A few minutes had gone by, and the initial pain was beginning to subside.
“Okay, I’ll do my best. I won’t tell anyone what happened, and we’ll hope no one notices.”
Ultimately, I forced myself to walk normally for weeks afterward. When alone, I limped like one leg was shorter than the other, but whenever any adult was around I swallowed the pain and hid the hobble. I should probably gone to the doctor, had X-rays, and some sort of treatment, but I wanted to protect my friend.
I think you all may be the first to know the truth. The jig is finally up. He kept his job…at least for a while…and I never had any knee ramifications….at least not yet. I’m not sure how I was able to hide that injury because it hurt like the dickens, but I did. But, there is one thing that you can be assured of…
I NEVER helped Tim clean out horse stalls again!
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