Chapter 42

The men my father sent over from Nashville, all arrived together, early Friday morning. I put one of them in charge of production scheduling, and the other one began filling in for Donny and Miss Kitty, arranging for both of them to have some days off from work.

I sent the maintenance man over to Jerry Davis, to be checked out on all the equipment we had in the plant, and to be assigned wherever, and whenever, Jerry most needed him.

Jerry had already confirmed that the maintenance people who were still with the company, were, for the most part, untrained, other than for performing relatively routine tasks.

I was given a list of three names, by the two Nashville production people. These were names of people they thought had either the experience or the skills to perform tasks we had a desperate need for, like packaging, inventory control, recipe dough mixing, and ingredient formulation. We needed people to fill in for those now vacant positions.

I had the guy I'd put in charge of scheduling, call these people they'd told me about, instructing him to find out if they would be willing to come to Birmingham, to accept temporary employment with us.

I told him to offer to pay all their travel expenses, including motel expenses while they were here working for us, as well as guarantee each of them at least one month's full employment.

As an incentive, I also told him that anyone coming here for us now, would be guaranteed a place, when the first call back to work came from the Nashville plant, once we finished converting it over to a vending product baking plant.

From our experience with the newer plant in Omaha, we knew that less than half the former workers at the Nashville plant would be hired to work at our new plant.

Knowing you would be among the first called back to work was a huge advantage to have. I was sure it would help convince any that were hesitant to come over, even if it were for only a single month of work.

Jerry also informed me that his brother had left Luling, Texas, on Thursday night, and was expected to hit Birmingham sometime before Friday evening. He also told me that his brother, Jim, had tried to get us to pay seven thousand for the Simpson spare parts, but that he'd ultimately agreed to taking only five thousand, because of the added prospect of being hired for a good job.

"I called and spoke to Shannon, his ex, and she confirmed to me that Jim hasn't touched a drop of any booze, for going on five months. He wouldn't lie to her about it. At least, I don't think he would."

"Five months isn't very long, Jerry."

"Maybe not, but it's the longest he's ever gone without drinking, since he was about fifteen years old. Losing Shannon, and both his boys, because of what the booze did, has maybe finally taught him something. He really loves his sons, and he took it hard when Shannon threw him out. I rented the two of us our own furnished place, close by here, in a trailer park. We'll stay there together, until I go back. By then, we'll know more about him. If he's drinking, I'll know about it soon enough."

Joyce had sent down many cases of vending product, enough for us to put it into the small grocery stores our route people serviced. I had it all piled up over at the ingredient storage buildings, hoping that Kyle would be able to handle setting up the distribution program, as soon as he came back to work, on the following Monday.

I wanted to assign him three or four local people to assist him, but, without Gene around, I didn't have anyone I could ask about who we had, people who might be the best, to give him to work with. I decided I'd just wait, and let Kyle decide, for himself, who he wanted to have working with him.

Thursday night, Cindy and I had our first disagreement. It came about because I told her, right when I got home from work, that Brenda would be spending the night with me. She didn't come right out and admit she was jealous, but that was what it was. I tried explaining to her that our lifestyle only worked if there was no jealousy involved, but she denied being jealous.

When Brenda and I went to my bedroom, at about ten, I heard the guest bedroom door slam shut, a few minutes later. Brenda and I enjoyed ourselves anyway. I hoped that Joyce would have a talk with Cindy, when we all went back home on Friday night.

I had asked both girls to be packed and ready to leave by four o'clock, just in case I could get away early. At three, I called over to the rental house, to let them know that they should load up the van, and meet me over at the airport.

Brenda told me that Cindy was over at her Dad's house again, but that she'd call her for me. She said everything was already packed, and she would just swing by, to pick up Cindy, on her drive over to the airport. Ten minutes later, Brenda called me back.

"She's not coming. She said she has to do something with her mother, something she says they had planned for awhile, but she says she forgot, until her mother reminded her about it, an hour ago."

"Is she still at her father's house?" Brenda said she was. I called over there, and Gene answered the phone.

"Hi, Gene, this is Kenny. Can I please speak to Cindy?"

Gene said hello, then he said she was out back, and that I should hold on, and he'd go out and get her for me. It took about three minutes before Cindy came to the phone.

"Kenny, I was just going to call you. I forgot all about us planning on going over to Atlanta tomorrow, to visit my Aunt Margaret. My mother hates to drive any distance by herself, and I usually drive for her, whenever we go somewhere visiting. You're coming back on Monday?"

"Probably Sunday afternoon. Maybe you should call Joyce before you leave, to let her know why you can't make it this time. We're all going to miss you. Drive carefully, and call us in Ridgeline, when you get there."

We finished up our phone call, after another few minutes. When I put the phone back in the cradle, I thought about how Cindy sounded when we talked. She hadn't seemed upset or anything, so I thought it was just what she told me it was. She had forgotten about her and her mother planning to visit her aunt, until she'd been reminded. I forgot stuff like that all the time.

I put the disappointment over Cindy not flying home with us out of my mind. I had grown very fond of her, very quickly, but I was sure that we'd have a lot of time together in the coming weeks and months. Cindy had already said she wanted to stay wherever I was.

I was a little bit afraid the other wives would resent her getting to spend more time with me than they did. Her not coming back to Ridgeline with us might help prevent that resentment from getting started, for at least a little while longer.

Brenda and I were back home with the family before seven thirty, Friday night. Joyce told me, as soon as I saw her, that Cindy had called, to tell her about needing to visit her aunt with her mother.

I played a quick nine holes of golf on Saturday morning, with Shirley, Mama, and my Dad. It was cold, and a little on the breezy side, so we didn't play the back nine as we'd earlier planned.

Saturday night, the whole group of us, including my parents, Shirley's parents, Hans and Gerta, Georgia Connor, and Aunt Clara, drove over to Gracerie's for a big dinner party in the small banquet room. Jane was there too, having taken the night off from her job at the hospital, to be with all of us.

My father had a lot of questions he wanted to ask about my plans for launching the sales campaign for the convenience stores. When I finally got around to telling him that I was expecting Kyle Macklinson to rejoin the company, the following Monday, he seemed pleased, and also content to wait for further word of our progress.

He told me about several things that had come out, concerning the private subscription offering of the bond dealers. These were all things that he found potentially troubling. The most important issues all were concerned with the contract language.

Their standard contract specified that the bond issuers, (the bond company) were to be the holders of all collateral, and that this included all of the accounts receivable we'd be pledging to provide funding for the amount of the annual debt service.

What troubled my Dad was the absence of any language in the agreement that limited or controlled some of the uses the bond company could employ for this money.

Additionally, the amount of the accounts receivable, and any other accounts collectible to be pledged, was unspecified by them, and these could be either raised or lowered, depending on the stated requirements given to us by the bonding company, during the life of the loan.

Both these contract features were news to us, not having been discussed in any of the preliminary talks Dad had with them. What it seemed to amount to was an open call on whatever receivables we were able to develop, from any expansion efforts we would undertake, using the subscription capital they had raised for us.

My Dad was troubled by all of this, but he thought he could get necessary changes made, changes that would spell out, and limit, the amounts, and the approved uses, for our pledged assets and income. He said he'd insist on having specific language inserted to restrict the kinds of uses the bonding company could make with our income stream.

"I'd feel a lot better about this whole thing if we floated the bond issue ourselves. You're talking about four or five hundred million dollars. Frank could find someone who knows about this type of placement, and we could pay him to set it up, so that someone we trust handled the income stream, and all our other pledged assets. Put up all the property we'll be acquiring with the money, and whatever net revenue it generates. Give them the six percent interest, for fifteen years, and add some kind of sweetener at the end, maybe an extra ten percent return on their initial capital."

"The other way is cheaper, and they do all the work of subscribing the offering." My Dad was looking at the work he thought might be involved in doing all of this ourselves, and at all the uncertainties surrounding our being able to find sufficient investors for it.

I didn't care about any of that, certainly not as much as I cared about being worried about running all of our income stream through a bunch of outside hands, and knowing we didn't have any way of controlling things, or the power to restrain them from making their own uses of our assets.

"If we could do it ourselves, we'd start out with one hundred percent of the money, not ninety two percent, and, we'd also have the certainty of knowing no one else was going to be misusing either our income, or any of the other collateral we were pledging. Mama and I would each put up a hundred million. We had that much pledged before, with the other credit facility. You'd only have to find another three hundred million. If it would make it easier, Mama and I will both subordinate our income and capital payback to the other subscribers. We've never had any security pledged for our loans to the business before anyway, and we already know you're going to be making plenty of money for us with this capital you'd be borrowing."

"It seems too complicated your way. We're not in the money business, Kenny, and I think we should leave things like this to those who are. We'd be beginning this from scratch, your way, without any guarantees, when, or even if, we'd be able to raise the rest of the money we're going to need. I can't make purchase commitments based on something so uncertain as what you're proposing."

"It wouldn't hurt to call Frank, and tell him what we need. Let him recommend someone who can do it for us, then wait to see what he tells you. With this company you're dealing with now, you're talking about giving them open access to almost all of the company's expansion assets, without having any way to prevent them from screwing us. You can't know for sure that you can close all those loop holes they have written in, or even if you've already found everything they might be able to do to you. We already know we can trust ourselves not to try to take advantage of each other."

"I'll call Frank, but I'm still going to see if we can get a contract that we can live with from these other people. One that removes all the ambiguous language, so there are no worrisome unknowns in the legal language, nothing that threaten our interests."

Driving home, I spoke to Joyce about my concerns with how my Dad was going about raising his new expansion capital. It wasn't a case of me thinking my father wasn't capable of protecting our interests, because I knew he was. What bothered me, was that this company had already shown a willingness to play fast and loose with the truth.

They had failed to voluntarily disclose the nature and degree of their contractual involvement with our revenue stream, and had encouraged us to put together a list of equipment and plant assets that didn't represent anything of any real value to us.

The way their contract was currently worded, they could use any current income from our receivables to pay out interest payments to the investors in any of the other bond offerings they were handling. There was no safeguard to prevent their co-mingling of the funds under their control. It was beginning to look like some kind of a Ponzi scheme to me.

I was worried that my father was so anxious to get his hands on the expansion capital he needed, that he might overlook some potential pitfalls. Joyce listened to all the points I wanted to make, but she didn't give me any immediate comment. When I finally ran out of concerns to list for her, she reminded me that my father had always ended up making good financing deals for the company. It was something he handled, exclusively, for the company, and we should allow him to continue making these decisions. She reminded me that I didn't like it when people tried to interfere with decisions I made, especially when they were in my areas of responsibility.

I didn't say anything at the time, but I was thinking that none of my areas of responsibility involved anything like the kind of money my father was currently negotiating for. Forty percent of the potential losses would be mine too, and, to me, this was plenty of reason for me to be concerned.

Sunday, at about three, Shirley and I flew to Alabama. I was looking forward to my week at the plant, and to spending more time with Cindy. When I'd related some details about the first night that Cindy and I had become lovers to Joyce, she told me that Cindy had phoned her, the very next morning, to tell her all about it, in great detail, and that Brenda had also called herself the next morning, to tell Emily about what she'd seen.

I had attempted to explain to Joyce how making love to Cindy had made me feel even more connected to her, and to all the wives and children. Really, it had made me feel more connected to everyone I loved. I felt like I had finally tapped into all the energy that Joyce kept claiming our family had developed.

In the past, because I hadn't known how to feel it, I had doubted this energy even existed. Now, I knew better. I had finally learned how to reach outside myself, to use the love around me, to add to my own inner strength. I felt the power of this added strength, and the protection it seemed to give me, like an emotional shield.

I had been thinking of that new energy, and Shirley and I had even spoken of it, on the flight back to Birmingham.

Shirley had mentioned that she hoped she and Cindy could get to know each other better during the week. I knew she didn't mean that in a sexual sense, just that she and Cindy should learn more about each other. Of all the wives, Shirley was the least interested in doing things with the other women, and the least open in her sexual appetites.

She and Joyce slept together frequently, but Shirley didn't do that much with any of the others. When she was with me though, she became much more open to doing things with all the others. I think she believed things were somehow more all right, just as long as I was present, to provide the heterosexual justification to the gathering.

When we got to the Birmingham house, a little before seven, Cindy wasn't there. When she still hadn't arrived, or called us, by ten o'clock, I began to get worried. I knew she had been planning on getting back to Birmingham before we did. I hoped she hadn't had an accident, or had something go wrong with some member of her family.

It didn't really occur to me that she was deliberately staying away from me. We had given Cindy her own house key, so Shirley and I locked up, then went to bed ourselves, at ten thirty. We made love, but it wasn't one of Shirley's good days, and she finally asked me if we could stop trying to bring her to orgasm. That almost never happened to us when we made love anymore, but, it sometimes did, if Shirley was upset, or was worried about something.

Monday morning, right after I got done briefing Kyle and Steve on the duties I wanted each to assume at the company, Joyce called me, and she was very upset.

"Kenny, Cindy called me this morning. She was crying so much I couldn't understand what she was trying to tell me at first. She finally was able to get out what she wanted to tell me. She wants to take some time to think about what being with all of us means. She didn't come right out and say it, but I'm pretty certain she's having trouble with the idea of only being one of the women in your life. She said she has difficulty in understanding what place she was supposed to be filling with us."

I felt like I'd somehow failed. Failed Joyce, myself, and Cindy too. I had been so certain that she understood that she had become a loved person within our family, and that she too believed she belonged with us.

What we'd shared had been an important breakthrough for me, and I thought it represented at least as much, if not more, to her. I wanted her to feel safe with us, a protected member of our family.

All I could think of was that she was jealous, that she had somehow convinced herself that she and I would be different than whatever I now had with my other wives.

It was different, but the difference wasn't something that would weaken my ties and connections with any of my other relationships. In fact, I believed it had strengthened them, just like it had strengthened me.

"Did she tell you she was going to call me too, or come over here so we could at least talk it over?"

"No. She said she was calling me because she didn't want to face you, not until after she figured out what her feelings were about all of this. Maybe she's hoping you'll call her anyway, that you'll be so concerned that you'll want to confront her, or reassure her."

"I don't think I want to go against her stated wishes. With her past history, even me trying to see or talk to her might bring back the kind of fears she's been plagued with for the last few years. Cindy has these boundaries. If you encroach on them, she gets nervous, becomes very agitated. You have a better chance to talk her into coming back and speaking with us than I do. This whole fear of men thing has effectively tied my hands with her. Make sure you tell her I love her, and that the reason I'm not running after her is only because I don't want to frighten her."

Things weren't off to a good start.

Jerry brought his brother in to see me right before lunch. Jim was a smaller, younger version of Jerry, and it was easy to see that Jim really looked up to his older brother.

"We came in yesterday and unloaded all the Simpson spares into the parts stock room. We fixed the number six oven, replacing two of the heating elements, and some frayed wiring that might have contributed to the original problem. We had the covers off anyway, so we switched out two or three other parts that looked like they had seen better days.

"We have enough spare stuff now, we can afford to take things out and rebuild them later, if we need to. Enough extra, to build three or four ovens, almost from the frames up. Phil used to have to try to repair or rebuild all the interior switches and circuitry himself, because all that stuff is pretty hard to come by now. The company has been out of business for twenty years. We have enough extra heating elements now, to last us for the next twenty years, both new and used. Jim wants to have the check for what he's selling us, cut to Shannon, for her and the boys."

Jim nodded to confirm what Jerry said about the check for the spare parts.

"He brought us even more stuff than I knew he had. You ended up getting quite a bargain. If I'd known how much stuff he had, I wouldn't have chiseled him down to five grand. The stuff is worth a lot more than even the seven he was asking for."

I was a little distracted by the news about Cindy, but I did call over to accounting and tell them to cut a check for seven thousand to Shannon Davis. Hearing me say the amount, both Jim and Jerry broke out in big smiles.

I always believed in being fair to people, and I knew that the two thousand meant more to the Davis brothers than it did to me, or to the company. Sometimes, it was the little gestures that paid the biggest dividends. I wanted both of them to know I wasn't out to strike the hardest bargain I possibly could.

It must have been after four when Gene called me again. This time, he was calling as a worried parent, not as someone having business to transact with the company.

"Kenny, would you mind telling me what the hell is going on with you and my daughter? One minute, she's up on cloud nine, and the next thing I know, she's refusing to come out of her room, or even talk with me through her door. What did you do to her?"

"I don't know how to answer you Gene. When she didn't come back to the house last night, that was the first indication I had that things might not be all right. She didn't call me or anything. She called my wife, Joyce, this morning, and told her she needed some time alone to think about things. She didn't tell her what things, but we both think it has to do with all the other women in my life."

"She knew about them before she got that involved with you."

"She knew, but its one thing to know, as a factual matter, and another thing to realize the same thing, emotionally. I think Cindy has developed a problem with the idea that she'd have to share me. It isn't something that comes up in most relationships, and Cindy isn't the first girl to have problems with that idea."

"Well, what are you going to do about it?"

"I'm getting Joyce to talk with her. Cindy has some problems with relating to men. I don't want to scare her, and I don't want her to think I'm applying pressure on her. I love her, but I think she needs to make up her own mind about what being with me has to mean."

"I take it that being with Cindy, exclusively, isn't an option?"

"No, and it never would be. She had to know that. She's seen me with my family, all the children. I'm afraid Cindy would have to accommodate herself to us, because we're too important to each other to make any kind of changes that would disrupt what we've already built up together."

"I wish this hadn't come up right now. Not on top of the other problems we're having."

"I wish it hadn't come up too, but it did. As far as those other problems go, I thought we'd pretty much worked everything out last week. I don't bear any of you any ill will, and we think we've turned the corner as far as plant operation goes. My new maintenance guy and his assistant fixed the number six oven yesterday, and it's working as good as new. We bought up a whole slew of replacement parts for all the Simpson's, and I've been assured that we have enough of everything now to keep things running well past the useful life of this facility."

"Where did you get these spare parts for the ovens? Phil has been scouring the country, trying to find some of the things he needed."

"A guy in Texas bought up a warehouse full of Simpson spares a few years back, for scrap mostly. He liked to collect things, figuring he might someday get a chance to sell them for a profit. It happens that his brother works for us, at one of our other plants, and he told us about the spare Simpson parts his brother had. We got in touch with the guy, and he loaded a truck with all his stuff, and drove it right to our doorstep."

"You have to have been born under a lucky star, Kenny. I can't tell you how worried we've been about how much longer we could jerry rig things, to keep all those ovens on line. You come in, and, in less than a month, all those replacement parts fall right into your lap."

"I don't think it was luck, Gene. You have to remember, our network spans the whole country, and we communicate with all our technical people, about any needs we might have. We're always coming up with finds like this. Besides, we have all that old equipment from Consolidated's Nashville plant, that we could have brought down here to switch out the ovens. We're converting that plant to feed our vending product needs for the expansion we're getting ready to undertake. My Dad is raising five hundred million for that. When you have access to capital, it's easy to be lucky."

Gene didn't say anything more for awhile. I knew he was thinking about what he would have been able to accomplish if he'd only had access to the capital to do it. I wanted him thinking about that, wanted him to begin regretting his decision to quit our company.

Gene wasn't that different than my father, his weakness came from being unwilling or unable to take the point position, to lead the company in the direction it needed to go. My father didn't have that weakness. If anything, he was becoming too aggressive in his leadership.

"Well, as always, it was interesting speaking with you, Kenny. I learn a lot when we have these talks. Do you wish me to relay any message from you to Cindy?"

"Just tell her I miss her, and the house isn't as warm without her in it. Tell her my life isn't as sweet either."

"That might be awkward for me to tell her. Do you have something a little less personal for me to tell her?"

"That's what we have, Gene, and it's a personal connection. What I told you was as impersonal as I could make it. If I told you what I was really feeling, it would make both of us uncomfortable."

"I'll tell her you miss her."

"That's the truth, I do. While you're at it, tell her I love her too."

I called Frank Clooney, at his office, right before I left for the rental house. He and I talked for half an hour. I told him my concern for what my father was doing, and asked him if my father had consulted with him, or had tried to call him anytime that day.

"I spoke with him this morning, and he asked me to see if I could develop some information on a New York attorney." He mentioned the name, and it was the same man my father had used to look over the new bank facility contract, before he entered into that agreement.

I told him the proposal I'd made to my father, and asked him if he personally knew of anyone who could set up what I'd outlined, someone who could also find enough outside investors to subscribe for that other three hundred million.

"Kenny, I know some people who are qualified to write up the contracts, but for what you're talking about, you want an investment fund manager, or one of the large insurance companies. Mutual of New York, or Prudential, or even one of the foreign investment banks. The Japanese have more money than they know what to do with, right now. A three hundred million dollar placement wouldn't be too large for some of those investment banks to handle. I know someone in San Francisco, with good ties to some of the Japanese banks that handle foreign investments. I can either call him for you, or give you his name and phone number."

"Why don't you call him for me? Tell him that my mother and I will invest forty percent of the money, and subordinate our own position, in favor of any investor who will take the sixty percent position. Offer six percent, interest only, for the fifteen year life of the loan, with a ten percent capital sweetener at maturity, or else a six and a half percent annual interest payment, with no sweetener. We can pay quarterly too, if it makes a difference. Tell them we guarantee no early pay off, not unless we happen to sell off the company, and we have no current plans for doing that."

"Should I give him the contact information for you, or for your father?" I needed only a few seconds to decide my answer.

"Have him come through me. Dad is only thinking about getting the money quickly. I'd like to show him another option, but I'd need to put it to him after it was all agreed to, ready to fund. Anything else, and he wouldn't trust it."

I was sitting at home, on the sofa with Shirley, watching a special report about the so called "peace dividend" from the ending of the Cold War. The narrator was suggesting that the opposite was occurring, and that the American economy was getting hard hit by cutback's in Defense spending. The telephone rang, and I reached over to answer it.