Page 31 of The List
DAY TWELVE
It was strange waking up in his old room after so many years away.
He and Paula had lived in a house a few blocks over during the time they were married.
He sold it just before leaving town. But lying alone, here, in his childhood bed, he imagined himself seventeen again.
His first thoughts then were usually of breakfast, his mother, and the day of the week.
Mondays were bacon and eggs. Tuesdays cereal.
Grits and toast came midweek, French toast on Thursdays.
Depending on her mood and the weather, Fridays were either oatmeal or eggs again.
Saturday cold cereal. And Sundays pancakes and sausage, with church afterward.
But he remembered his father too.
Weekend mornings when the lawn mower or one of the table saws in the garage would wake him after a Friday night at the VFW playing pool or celebrating after a baseball game.
Concord always seemed such a safe place.
One he hoped that might, someday, provide stability for his own children.
Yet here he was, in his forties, with no wife and no kids.
That longing had been another reason why he’d returned.
It seemed his fate was inexplicably linked with this spot on the earth.
He rose, slipped on a pair of tattered gym shorts and an old jersey, and drifted downstairs.
The house was quiet, his mother still asleep.
After eating a bowl of cornflakes he headed out the back door toward the garage.
The detached building was a full two stories, its second floor once his father’s woodworking shop.
He gassed the lawn mower, an old two-cycle job that his father had tinkered with for years. Since he’d left, his mother had cut the grass. She’d always loved yard work. But he wanted to contribute toward the household chores and lawn care seemed the most productive thing for him to do.
The morning was trademark middle Georgia, June hot. A thick coat of dew licked the grass and made the cutting a little slow. An hour later he was in the garage searching for the gas trimmer when he heard a vehicle enter the driveway. He stepped out to see Hank Reed climb out of a pickup.
“You’re up early,” he said.
Hank wore his usual starched khaki pants, shiny penny loafers, and a cotton, button-down shirt.
“And seriously overdressed. Where you headed?”
“You hear about Paul Zimmerman?”
He had not.
“Somebody blew his brains out in Solomon Swamp.” Hank shook his head. “A damn hunting accident.”
He shook his head. “That’s awful. Does the sheriff know anything?”
“I talked to him yesterday. They don’t have much. The shot came from a deer stand. Paul had a vest on. Nice bright orange. Lot of good it did. They can’t find a soul who was in the area at the time. No tracks. No nothin’. The funeral’s tomorrow. I hate funerals.”
He agreed. In the past eleven years he’d attended only two. First Paula’s. Then his dad’s. More than enough.
“What brings you by?” he asked.
“I need you to look at somethin’ else and tell me what you think.”
Hank slipped a sheet of paper from his back pocket and handed it over. He unfolded a memo from Hamilton Lee on the upcoming contract negotiations and an instruction about not seeking five years in duration.
“Hank, this deals with negotiations. I’m out of the loop on this one. I don’t have any idea.”
“Does the memo sound reasonable to you?”
“You know more about Lee than I do. I’ve never met the man.”
Hank pointed a finger. “You’re flip-flopping like a fish on a hot dock.”
“And you’re pushing things to the breaking point. I can’t breach my employer’s confidence. Maybe it’s like the memo says. Going for five years is just not worth the trouble this time. How did you get your hands on this?”
“Same as that list of numbers. The company’s computer obliged me.”
He remembered Thursday’s management meeting at the mill and decided to pick a little himself. “What do you want from this collective bargaining, Hank?”
“I need at least three to five percent on wages. My guys aren’t going to be satisfied with two percent.
There are several side issues on call-ins and sick days that need adjustment.
And I’ve got a ton of retirees on my butt about medical deductibles.
There’s also a stupid point the members rammed down my throat on assured overtime.
But the company’s never going to agree to that. ”
“What do you have to offer?”
“Nothing, if they don’t want five years. That’s my problem.” Hank paused. “Come on, help me out, have you heard any talk on this?”
No way he was going to breach confidentiality. “Like I said, Hank, my boss is handling the negotiations. I’m the new kid on the block. Workers’ comp cases are my problem.”
“Then why include you in that powwow Thursday with the big cheesers?”
He grinned. “I saw one of your guys tinkering at a power outlet when I went into the building. I figured you were keeping an eye on things. You know I can’t talk about that.”
“Without five years on the table, I’m screwed.”
“Tough tour of duty for an old warrior, huh?”
“Have you got any ideas?”
“Doesn’t Lou Greene have any wisdom?”
“Lou’s good for drafting things, but useless on strategy. He’s too accustomed to workers’ comp, which for him is like shootin’ fish in a barrel. Right now, I need finesse.”
“What does Greene think of that memo?”
“He reads it just like it says. The company isn’t interested in five years.”
“Why don’t you agree?”
“It just seems fishy, considering how hard they fought for that last time.”
“Hank, you always think there’s a sinister plot. It could be you just got your hands on something you weren’t supposed to see. After all, I don’t think the company expects you to invade their computers.”
“You meant what you said? You wouldn’t let them snooker me, would you?” Hank asked.
He owed Southern Republic loyalty. His inclusion at Thursday’s strategy session had surely been a test, his discussion with Bozin afterward a message.
But he and Hank had been through too much together.
Not to mention Ashley. A paycheck was one thing, a friend another.
Especially a close one. Even one who chose to put him in an untenable position.
“Hank, has the company ever been able to play you?”
“I like to think not.”
“Then what are you worried about?”
“I don’t know. Just a feelin’. Things don’t feel right. What about that list of numbers? Anything?”
“Not yet. But I’m working on it. Have you met with one of the owners yet?”
The details were never explained, nothing about who, where, or when, but he knew how Hank really got things done at negotiation time. And it wasn’t during the public show of the negotiations.
“Not yet. But the call should come any time.”
“Find out then.”
Hank snickered. “I already intended to do just that.”
10:30 A.M.
B RENT CLIMBED THE WOODEN STAIRS TO THE GARAGE’S SECOND story, cooling off after removing the creeping Bermuda grass invading his mother’s flower beds.
The top floor was bare studs with a rough plywood floor.
Two dormer windows provided light. There was no ceiling, never had been, only the open rafters supporting a pitched roof.
Years ago, two walls had been lined with benches supporting his father’s woodworking tools, the saws and drills heard at all hours of the day and night.
It was where his father built birdhouses.
Intricate, beautiful works his dad had enjoyed giving away.
The backyard was littered with them, and during the past week he’d noticed several still adorning the neighborhood.
All the pegboards remained, but the Swiss cheese panels where cold chisels, hammers, and rasps once hung were now bare.
The table saws, sanders, and drills were also gone, everything sold when his mother held a huge garage sale.
He understood why she’d been so willing to part with his father’s treasured things, that need for distance and a sense of moving on.
He’d been searching for the same thing for a long time.
The splintered surfaces of the workbenches now supported cardboard boxes, each meticulously packed by the moving company and delivered from Atlanta a few days ago.
He hadn’t kept a lot, most of what he’d owned had been sold during his own garage sale a few weeks ago, but enough remained to fill the musty loft.
He threaded his way through and looked up at the old shelves for the wooden container.
It was not one brought from Atlanta. This one had stayed in the garage since college.
He recalled seeing it while moving in the furniture, an aged Florida grapefruit crate lifted from the throwaway pile at the Piggly Wiggly what seemed a zillion years ago.
He carefully slid it down and carried it over to one of the workbenches.
Inside were mementos from high school and college, tossed there one afternoon after cleaning out his room, the décor adjusted for a man no longer eighteen. But there were also things from law school and his time while practicing law in Concord.
Right on top was the press clipping from Paula’s death.
She would have loved the funeral. So many attended that the crowd spilled outside the church and onto the lawn.
Luckily, the day had been gorgeous, capped by an azure sky.
The casket, a white bronze, had been draped in yellow roses, her favorite, but closed—the one thing she would have regretted—the windshield and steering column doing too much damage for the mortician to repair.