Riven - Jerry B. Jenkins [36]
“Jimmie, I was called to this. It’s all I know. What would I do with myself? Teach Bible college? I don’t have enough education. Missionary work? I’m too old.”
“Actually I heard about something just the other day. Let me look into it and get back to you. Wherever you land, leave a phone number at headquarters, and I’ll find you.”
“I have no idea where that will be.”
“You’ve got friends, don’t you? Someone who’ll take you in until you land on your feet?”
“I’ll think about it,” Thomas said. “And thanks for hearing me out.”
“I’m awfully sorry, Thomas. I should have given you more warning, but I guess I just naively hoped you’d be the guy who could work with Paul.”
When Thomas hung up, Grace was at his elbow. And when he had filled her in, she reached for the phone.
“Who are you calling?”
“Do you trust me, Thomas?”
“You know I do.”
“Then let me do this.” She called the moving trailer rental place and left a message that she would be there when they opened in the morning and wanted the same size unit they had dropped off not long before.
“You don’t want to take a few days?” Thomas said. “Say our good-byes?”
“I don’t want to be here a minute longer than I have to be. And the last thing I want is Paul or Patricia showing up to try to talk you into submitting to his authority.”
“Oh, I reckon Mrs. Carey would drive him off her land with a shotgun.”
“Don’t tempt me,” she said. “I know we’re supposed to love our enemies and pray for those who despitefully use us. Only God can do that for me. Keeping from broomsticking that man would be the hardest work I’d ever have to do.”
The rest of the night, Grace busied herself packing. Thomas handled the big stuff and pleaded with her every half hour or so to take a break, get some sleep, start again in the morning. But she kept working.
Monday evening | Dennis Asphalt & Paving | Addison
Alejandro was stocky with smooth dark skin, a moon-shaped face, gleaming teeth, and a full head of black hair that hung over his forehead. He leaned back in a cheap chair before a desk covered with a mountain of papers.
“Okay, Mr. Brady Darby, you might be in luck. I got a guy hurt his back and is gonna be out awhile. Can you give me two hours a night, Monday through Friday?”
“Two?”
“Needs to be two, man.”
“Okay. But I can’t get here till seven.”
“You mind workin’ alone?”
Brady shook his head. “What do I do?”
“I’ll teach you, and right now. You ever drive a forklift?”
“No.”
“It’s easy. I mean, you gotta learn, but you’ll get it. Follow me.”
Alejandro led him to an outbuilding where row upon row of steel forms had been filled with cement or concrete—Brady didn’t know which, so he asked.
Alejandro looked surprised at the question. “Cement is in concrete, man. Concrete is the cheapest way to make car stops. Some people call them blocks. There are some plastics and composites coming that might eventually run us out of the business, but for now, we’re the biggest. Our crew spends most of the day pouring these and letting them harden. They’re six feet long, four inches high, and six inches wide. Once they set, our guys knock off the holds and free the blocks from the forms. You see how each one has two slots underneath? That’s where the lift forks go, and that’s where you come in.”
Alejandro motioned for Brady to follow, and the foreman scampered up into the seat of a forklift truck, proving more agile than he looked. He fired up the machine and deftly handled the controls, expertly lifting each finished car stop and setting it in place on a thick wooden skid.
“Once you have a load that’s as high as it is wide,” he hollered over the engine noise, “you’re ready to load it onto the truck!”
The six-foot square load of car stops appeared to tax the forklift, and Alejandro slowed now as he pivoted the machine and proceeded to the back of a flatbed truck with a winch built onto it.
“Just ignore the winch, unless you set them on there wrong and have to straighten ’em!” Alejandro shouted. “That’s for off-loading at the job sites otherwise!”