Chapter 97

Day five started in the dark yet again. There was time for a very quick shower and then breakfast before we left the fancy truck stop. Everything was over priced in my opinion, but it compensated for the amenities I suppose. Either way it's where we ate and where Jerry bought the last day's Diesel.

We were on the road again, when Jerry noticed something 'funny' about the handing of the truck. It was a kind of thump in the rear somewhere. The truck ran okay, and he had control so he decided to hold off checking it till we pulled over for lunch. It was a gutsy call anything could go wrong and that was a lot of steel to be throwing around the highway, if something did go wrong.

At lunch we found that it was just a loose strap allowing the load to bounce but not really move. "That's pretty much what I thought. If it had been a flat the trailer would have been all over the road," Jerry said. I had to take his word I had pulled very few trailers. Maybe a short based water wagon but nothing as long as the 25ft behemoth we carried that day.

At 3PM we pulled into Augusta Georgia, then went looking for a street in a residential sub division. Since Jerry had called from the road again, there were several men waiting for us at the site.

"Bob?" Jerry asked of a man about sixty, who seemed to be in charge.

"That's me," the man said. "I see you have my fire escape."

"Yes sir, I see you have some men to help us unload it," Jerry commented.

"Yes so why don't we get on with it," Bob asked.

"Why don't you walk around it first to make sure it has not changed from the picture I sent you. Then you need to pay me before we off load it." Jerry explained.

"Fair enough," Bob said as he began walking around the trailer. "It looks just fine," he said handing Jerry a credit card. Jerry actually had a card reader that he could hook to his mobile phone somehow. After the card was processed. I helped as much as I could, with the bad hand, to unload the rusty steel. We were headed home by 4PM.

On the drive home Jerry said, "You surprised me Sylvia with what a good assistant you were. You didn't ask me to make a lot of bathroom stops and you didn't want to go shopping in every town we passed through. I have had helpers who did."

"Jerry I collect memories, not shit," I said to end that conversation.

Jerry just nodded. After that we rode in silence an hour or so before we got into the mountains on the home stretch. It was dark when he pulled onto my street. I grabbed my bag and bed roll through one of the back doors. It was under the plywood bed, so it was tight, but it came out, I slung the bag over my shoulder and I held the blankets in my arm like a child.

"So you want to do this again," Jerry asked.

"I don't think so Jerry. I don't think I want to any of it again," I informed him.

"Not even the sex?" he asked.

"Especially the sex," with that I turned to walk away. He was mumbling a long sentence with a very clear "bitch" at the end of it. I smiled knowing I had gotten under his skin and not minding one bit. I didn't think his treatment of me deserved any better.

After a week the junk mail had been backing up. I had three or four medical bills, but I checked on line and found the insurance for the state was taking care of it. With that knowledge, I planned to schedule my next visit for evaluation of the hand with a clinic nearer to me. I made myself a note and left it on the kitchen counter, where I heated my coffee.

Then I took a bath and went to bed. Okay I did put a frozen bagel in the microwave, then in the toaster oven. The margarine seemed to never go bad in the fridge, so I had some of that with strawberry jelly on the bagel. The jelly did come from the my almost daily Hardee's breakfast biscuit. Yeah I kept all those little single serving containers. I'm a cheap bitch, what can I tell you.

After the bagel I spread my blankets out on my DIY sofa/bed and went to sleep. I had to go to the bathroom twice in the middle of the night. It looked as though the road trip had caught up to me.

I slept until 9AM, which was longer than normal. I was catching up on my sleep, I told myself. I went into the kitchen where I fixed myself another bagel, because at 9AM I didn't want to take the trike to the Hardee's at the plaza. I also didn't want to rush into anything else. The view from my tiny kitchen table was out the back door. There was a glass pane in the top of the door with a view of the drive way. It wasn't thrilling but I could see anyone who came my way. At 9:30AM or so there was no one coming to visit.

After the bagel I felt good enough to do my rehab exercise on the hand. I had taken my aleve, but it hadn't had time to kick in, so I would have more pain than at any other time during the day. Still the pain told me things as well.

I removed the elastic bandage carefully. Then I lifted my hand off the molded splint where it had rested. I didn't have to use my right hand to lift it from the splint. That was a huge improvement. At first the pain of the dropping hand had been unbearable. By the time the five weeks had passed, there was enough strength in the wrist to hold the hand up so that it didn't put so much pressure on the separated bones. I had remembered to bring the rubber ball to breakfast so I could try to grip it. When I first began, I wasn't even able to wrap my fingers around the large red ball. by that time I could at least lift it. I couldn't squeeze it yet, that was my next challenge.