A broken life, then a break

He boarded the first bus he saw.

Thunk, thunk, thunk…

"I need to get to Irwindale," he told the driver.

Doctors had advised him not to make the trip, but he was determined to confront the people who had done this to him. Their address was scrawled on a crumpled piece of paper he had carried in his pocket for weeks.

Guided by strangers, he boarded another half a dozen buses and two trains in an odyssey that lasted from dawn to late afternoon.

He got off near Longden Avenue in Irwindale. The last leg of his journey stretched before him: a 1 1/2 mile hobble through a moonscape of rock quarries and repair yards. Finally, there he was, at the headquarters of American Riggers, a lot full of cherry-red semi-truck cabs.

He climbed the concrete steps into a bungalow office. Sweat poured down his frame, slight but for his potbelly. His wounded foot felt like it might give out, but this was his moment, the one he had been waiting for.

He faced the company owner.

"One of your truck drivers ran me over," he said.

Schulman expected an apology — and compensation. The man stared in apparent disbelief. Then he burst out laughing.

Schulman recalls the sting of what he heard next: "The only way you're going to get anything is to sue me."

An employee joked that if Schulman's story was true, he wouldn't be alive to tell it. Schulman flushed with embarrassment and then rage.

He could hear their laughter as he limped away.

***

Schulman had always prided himself on making his own way. After his father walked out on the family when he was a teenager, he moved from his native Chicago to the San Fernando Valley. Never very interested in school, he learned plumbing.

His first marriage ended in divorce, and so did his second. But when he reunited with his second wife, Leonora, in his late-30s, he felt like his life had finally fallen into place.

They moved to Sacramento and spent nearly every moment together, running a successful plumbing business. But the relationship was tumultuous. Schulman drank, and sometimes his temper flared. On a few occasions, police were called to the house to settle domestic disputes.

Still, she seemed to be the only person willing to stick by him. On a whim, they bought a puppy through an ad they saw on a hardware store bulletin board. They both had children from previous marriages; the dog, a German Shepherd mix, gave them something to raise together. They named her Pebbles.

Life was mostly good, until a phone call in 2006 triggered a disastrous series of events. Schulman's wife got word that her son was ill. They had to move back to the San Fernando Valley so she could be with him.

The move to a relative's condo in Encino was rough on Schulman. He often clashed with his stepdaughter's boyfriend, who refused to allow Pebbles inside. The tension, aggravated by Schulman's drinking, put a strain on his marriage.

Their disputes came to a head on Super Bowl Sunday 2007, as Schulman watched his beloved Chicago Bears fumble and fold in a rainy battle against the Indianapolis Colts. An argument led to blows, and Schulman was kicked out.

He wound up sleeping on the streets in Hollywood and the Valley. On the night of March 27, 2007, he found a mattress propped against a bright-blue dumpster behind a Trader Joe's in Encino. He knocked the mattress onto the pavement and drifted off to sleep.

***

He can't remember which came first: the roar, loud as a jet engine's, or the sensation of thousands of pounds of pressure crushing his bones.

An 18-wheeler carrying a forklift in its trailer had turned into the alley and rolled over his legs.

Schulman screamed when he saw the white sneaker on his right foot turn red as it filled with blood. He dragged himself toward a nearby gas station. His kneecaps streaked a trail of blood on the asphalt. Someone called 911.

An emergency room doctor later compared the injured right foot to a crushed tomato: Squeeze hard enough and the insides will burst. The truck's wheels also wrenched Schulman's left calf bone, causing a severe fracture.

As he was lifted into an ambulance, Schulman mouthed the name he had seen on the truck's cherry-red cab. He didn't want to forget it.

American Riggers… American Riggers… American Riggers.

***

Schulman looked out of place in the Van Nuys Superior Courthouse. In filthy clothes, he clumsily navigated the halls. He wanted to sue American Riggers but wasn't sure how. He hung around outside the courthouse, stopping lawyers for advice as they hurried in and out. He strung together their tips and filed a lawsuit.