Day 106: September 14, 2009 (the man who was attacked)

Position: Driver

Number of Deliveries: 17

Sales: $877.91

Tips: $133

Hours: 7.41

Total Wage: $25.95 per hour

The attack was over by the time I arrived, but the scene wasn't. A large, dust covered, tattooed man at the construction site tells me where to set the food down, that it will be just a minute because of the attack. "It's not that bad. Just scraped him, and he's crying," says the tattooed man. "He'll pay you over there," he says, nodding toward the neighbor's driveway. I let out a nervous laugh to show solidarity with the real men, the ones who don't cry. But when I walk down the dirt driveway under construction and turn the corner of the green Cyclone fence, I see the man crumpled on the driveway, holding his own hand and being comforted by the foreman and an older couple. 

Forget about the $45 tip I received earlier this morning at Horizon Prep, this man needs help. As I approach, the man who was attacked lifts his hand from his right forearm, and I see puncture wounds. "Jesus, did he get you there too?" says the old man. "Shit." The man who was attacked shakes uncontrollably, tears still forcing their way out, when I notice a small chunk of flesh missing from his middle finger, which is now a red half-circle. He's Asian-American, close to forty, and his baseball cap dangles from his ponytail, somehow still hanging on. The foreman is an old, solid surfer type, his blond-gray hair poking out from his dirty black visor. He pours peroxide on the hurt man's finger, and when the man who was attacked lifts his hand from his forearm again, I can see the puncture wounds are multiple and swelling, the shape of the dog's teeth.

The older couple, who own the dog, keep saying "shit." Shit, shit, shit. And it's a weird kind of shit: part sympathy for the victim and the blood; part worry that their dog will be euthanized; part worry about being sued. The fact that they're rich makes the middle scenario unlikely but the last quite possible.

The man who was attacked is calm now, saying, "It was my fault," and asking for gauze as his middle finger continues to drip blood. The woman makes the scene more tense by being hysterical, going inside and getting an ice pack and gauze, but returning to say, "Ohhh, ohhh, ohhh my God." The man who was attacked bandages his own finger, only asking the foreman to cut the gauze lengthwise so he can tie it off after he wraps his finger. The foreman splits it with a box cutter, then helps tie it.

"Shit," the old man says as he takes a dollop of Neosporin and gobs it onto the attacked man's forearm. I just read the instructions to Neosporin last week when I jammed my knuckle into the doorway, and you're not supposed to apply it liberally. So I grab a paper towel from the nearby roll and bend down to wipe away the excess Neosporin from the man's forearm. I feel like a field doctor.

"He shouldn't do that," the old man says. "We've had him trained." We all look at the old man, who still kneels next to the man who was attacked. "We take him every Tuesday to have that aggressive crap taken out of him." He pauses. "I guess that's money wasted. Shit." The man who was attacked blames himself again, saying it isn't the dog's fault, that he reached for the owner and the dog protected him. I ask what kind of dog it is, but the woman is still pacing and panicking and the old man is still cursing, so no one hears or answers me. I picture a German Shepherd.

Since it's the middle of the afternoon and I'm the only driver, I need to get paid and get going, but I can't ask. The old man keeps letting out heavy breaths of frustration and "shits," for the victim, his dog, or his money, I'm not sure. The man who was attacked says, "I thought he took my finger off." That would explain the crying and shaking.

When things calm down, the foreman finally stands up and pulls out his wallet. "How much do I owe you?" 

"$82.87."

He pulls all the bills out of his wallet and counts out eighty-three dollars, then fingers the other five ones before handing them to me and saying, "That's all I got." Under the circumstances, the small tip doesn't seem so bad. After all, I wasn't attacked by the dog, and I still have all five fingers to count the tip.