BLOOD AT THE JUNK
A trailer, broken glass, and a vessel.
The junk trailer was full. Across the road was an old dump that I suppose could be called a landfill.
Daddy, one of my brothers, and I hitched the junk trailer to a tractor and headed across the road and down a trail through the pine woods. We stopped above the steep slope that opened into a north-facing gully. This shaded hillside gash was an excuse for scrap and garbage deposits. It had been thus for generations.
For some reason, people used to think that any depression in the ground—a pond, a swamp, a gully—or sometimes over a cliff or down a hillside—was there to be filled with “waste.” Back in those days, such dumps were common.
We called our dump “the junk.” So, when we went there, we said, “We are going to the junk.”
We backed the trailer to the top of the gully, took off the back gate, and started tossing junk.
We had inherited this junk spot when we started leasing that land across the road for pasture. My brothers and I loved exploring this and other such islands of treasure.
These private depositories were not stinky messes like you see at a modern transfer station. There were a few fading plastic items, but most of the junk was happily decomposing, disintegrating, rotting, or rusting.
We found more than one old baby buggy, a printer, cast-iron parts, a pasteurizer, colored glass, printed tins, horse-buggy parts, car parts—fascinating finds with their own stories that can be told another time.
Daddy stood next to the tailgate and worked from there. My brother and I took up our own strategic positions and tossed away. Tin cans, kitchen trash, magazines, newspapers, cardboard, broken glass—
“Ach! You hit a blood vessel! I have to get to the doctor!”
Deep red blood spurted out of the back of Daddy’s hand.
With his other hand, Daddy held pressure to stifle the crimson fountain and made a quick and powerful beeline hike through the woods toward the farmhouse.
Two young boys were left stunned. My brother remembers throwing a glass bottle or jar with a broken bottom.
We cannot recall much more. Did we finish unloading the junk? Were we competent enough to drive the tractor and trailer back to the farmstead?
The next time we saw Daddy was back at the farmhouse. He had a bandaged hand.
We do not recall Daddy ever saying anything further about the incident. But we never forgot about the blood at the junk.