Page 4 of The List
“How about everyone take a seat,” someone called out.
Hank was dressed in a short-sleeved checkerboard shirt, starched khaki pants, cordovan leather belt, and penny loafers shined to perfection.
The usual garb he’d seen his old friend wear a million times.
He was impressed, though, with the union hall, a handsome masonry building that reflected the 1920s-style architecture of Concord’s downtown.
Years ago, monthly business meetings had been held in the aged community center.
But he knew that, a few years back, during the last collective bargaining negotiations with Southern Republic, Hank had negotiated for half an acre of company property and enough financial assistance to erect the building.
Three unions dominated Southern Republic Pulp and Paper’s workforce.
United Paperworkers International, UPIU Local 567, was the largest. The International Association of Machinists, IAM Local 893, stood next.
Hank’s International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers had always been the smallest. But by any measure that mattered, IBEW was the most influential of the three.
“I call the June 6 meeting of Local 1341 to order,” Hank said.
The room quieted down.
Attendance wasn’t mandatory but at least fifty men were there, including Clarence Silva, who threw him an icy stare that seemed to renew the earlier offer of a rumble.
How surreal it was to be back.
When he’d closed his law office, packed his clothes, and driven north to Atlanta, he doubted he’d ever return to Concord, Georgia.
That was the whole idea about running away.
You never went back. But a lot had happened during the past decade.
His father died. His mother had grown lonely, her health deteriorating.
And he missed home. Concord was where he’d been born and raised.
He knew every nook and cranny. He’d practiced law there for five exciting years.
People knew him, and he knew them. Only thirteen thousand populated the county, many living there all their lives.
A quiet spot in rural middle Georgia, its sole claims to fame were Eagle Lake and a prosperous paper mill.
“As you’re all aware,” Hank said, “on July 1, this local’s collective bargaining agreement with Southern Republic Pulp and Paper will expire. Its five years are up.”
“Remember that,” came a shout from the rear of the hall. “No five years this time.”
“He’s right. That was bullshit,” another voiced said. “Five years is too damn long to restrict things.”
Thankfully, during his exile Brent had never allowed his subscription to the Concord Record to expire, so he knew what had happened.
Three years was the usual length of union agreements.
But last time Southern Republic had lobbied hard for five and, to get it, conceded to Hank’s demands for an extra percentage increase on wages—and financial help with the union hall.
But that move turned out to be unpopular.
A rare miscalculation of union sentiment on his old friend’s part.
“I get it,” Hank said, “no five years. But if the company knows we’re not, under any circumstances, going to approve another five-year deal, what concessions do you think I’ll be able to get? How will I bargain if they know, up front, our no-deal points?”
Brent noticed it was never we , or us , or the local . Always I . This was Hank’s union. Plain and simple. Some shook their heads in opposition, but others nodded in agreement. Something Hank taught him long ago came to mind. Logic is your friend. Use it.
“Look,” Hank said. “I’m a few days away from entering contract negotiations. I agree, five years in duration is long, but I have to have some bargaining room to make things happen. Cut me some slack here, and have a little trust. Have I ever let you down?”
Hank was perhaps the most interesting person Brent had ever known.
He’d seen him be absolutely ruthless, showing no compassion at all to a perceived enemy.
Yet he taught a Sunday school class at the First Baptist Church that was so popular, a waiting list had always existed to get into it.
Hank had worked at the mill since he was nineteen.
For the past twenty-five years he’d headed Local 1341 and for sixteen of those years he served as mayor of Concord.
But when voters decided they’d rather have a full-time city manager than a part-time mayor, he obliged them by not seeking a fifth term.
Inside the mill he carried the designation of senior day electrician.
As best as Brent could recall, only five people had ever accumulated the requisite thirty years necessary to reach that level, Hank currently at the top of the seniority.
Company management respected Hank. He had a talent for stirring up trouble when things didn’t go his way.
Some might call that terrorism. Hank liked to think of it as active persuasion .
He was quick to file a grievance, and even faster at supporting what he filed with indisputable evidence.
Where the other two union presidents could be bullied or charmed, Hank was susceptible to neither. He was a dealer. Pure and simple.
“You goin’ to look out for us this time?” one of the men asked.
He stared across the hall at Hank, who smiled back like a father would to a wayward child. The usual response would be some feel-good platitude said for the benefit of a friendly crowd. A shallow reassurance of the obvious.
But Hank knew his audience.
“Do fat babies fart?”
9:25 P.M.
T HE A SSOCIATE NOW WORE JEANS AND A PULLOVER SHIRT.
H E’D LEFT the convalescent center around seven, stopping only long enough on the side of the road to change clothes.
Light traffic on Highway 56 north from Woods County allowed for a leisurely pace.
Darkness had enveloped only thirty minutes ago, daylight lengthening as the first day of summer approached in two weeks.
He slowed the Ford Explorer and crept into Dixie Pond, Georgia, a tiny, unincorporated community ninety miles north of Concord.
It wasn’t really a town, more a convenience store, gas station, and post office—a smudge in the trees between Savannah and Augusta.
He’d come in search of what the locals called Barlow’s Trailer Park, named after the elderly woman who owned and operated it.
It sat on a wooded site a couple of miles off Highway 56, part of a ten-acre tract—forty-three lots rented by the month, well and septic tank hookups included.
The park’s one claim to fame came two years before when a tornado uprooted three trailers.
Miraculously, no one was hurt, but the mangled metal and snapped trees made for great video on all the Augusta newscasts.
That event, along with all the other relevant information, filled the file lying on the passenger seat.
He veered off the asphalt, the utility vehicle’s shocks working hard from powdery lime rock the consistency of a washboard.
He threaded down the winding path between two walls of shadowy trees.
Occasionally a house or trailer was betrayed by window lights.
Deeper, he passed a set of nasty dumpsters, headlights exposing dogs roaming the warm night in search of food and companionship.
The approaching row of forty-three mailboxes signaled the entrance to the park.
But he didn’t turn in.
Instead, he drove on and stopped in the first pocket off into the woods.
No interior cabin light betrayed his exit. He’d switched off the bulbs earlier before leaving the hospital. He stood next to the open driver’s-side door and calmly slipped on a black denim vest, the same one he always wore, zippered pockets full of the special items he’d need.
He rolled his right wrist and checked the time, then sauntered back toward the trailer park’s entrance, confining his steps to the grassy shoulder. His eyes oscillated like a cat on the scent of nocturnal prey as he mentally began to supplement what the file contained.
Just a few window lights glowed. Only one trailer burned an outside light.
Spidery antennas and satellite dishes jutted skyward, obviously no cable television lines had made it this far out.
No natural gas lines either, LP tanks squatted beside most. Few external adornments, like porches or skirts, signaled not much in the way of money or permanency.
According to the file many of the park’s residents were blue-collar manufacturing workers employed throughout nearby Augusta.
Most needed to be at work by seven the next morning. None were noted as night owls.
His destination was Lot 23.
There, except for an occasional one-night stand, Brandon Pabon lived alone.
Twenty-eight years old, Pabon supported himself solely from the weekly workers’ compensation benefits paid by Southern Republic Pulp and Paper Company.
This was the third claim Pabon had pressed against three separate employers over the last ten years.
On the first he received a mere $18,000.
The second brought him $85,000. Now the latest was being milked for a solid six- or a possible seven-figure settlement.
Already, almost $167,000 in medical bills had accumulated from chiropractors, neurologists, physical therapists, and vocational rehabilitative specialists—all from a supposedly devastating injury received when Pabon lifted a bag of cement from a wheelbarrow.
The latest escalation, the one that generated tonight’s visit, concerned the severe depression Pabon now allegedly experienced.