Chapter 61

I was up before six thirty the next morning, anxious to get out to the plant and begin my first full workday. My head was full of plans and ideas to help Kyle get off to a good start with the Quick Snacks program. Speed was the real key for me. We had adequate production capacity to keep fifty sales crews busy. I'd gone over all the numbers fifty times at least.

Joyce had shown me her plan for setting up storage and distribution facilities at different railhead's where she had reserved railcars and space for us to use. If it had just been a matter of planning, we would have been all set.

Kyle was the heart of our plan. Someone had to be the focus of any program, and it was going to be Kyle for ours. I really hoped that Billy Ray was wrong about Kyle having lost all his magic. Right from the beginning, I'd realized that Kyle was almost the perfect person to handle this type of effort.

He could get right out there and sell along side any of the other people on a team. That was a big plus for us. He would be able to recognize what people were doing wrong, and set them back on the correct pathway.

What I was looking for was for Kyle to find others that could do what he did, and have them go out and multiply his efforts by training and supervising teams of their own.

I was out the door and in my car before seven fifteen. When I saw Cindy's car parked alongside mine, I had to smile. Good for Joyce. That explained why she hadn't been up when I was ready to leave. I hoped she would have some of the strain she was under reduced by her having spent the night with Cindy.

Going without had made Joyce pretty uptight around Brenda and me. Even the older twins had mentioned that Mommy wasn't being very nice to them. I, for one, was looking forward to a more relaxed and mellow Joyce.

When Kyle showed up a little before eight, he had three men with him that I recognized from his original sales crew. He told me that four of the others would be coming in before the week was out.

Kyle looked different, less sure of himself, maybe less full of himself as well. Perhaps his business reversals had helped him in other areas. He wasn't exactly humble, but he wasn't constantly preening and letting everyone know all the time that he was the cock of the walk.

"Kenny, me and the boys would like to borrow some of the reserve vans and go on out today, to try to make ourselves some quick money. We all pretty much know what to do, and Doug told me there was enough extra product on hand so we wouldn't be causing anyone any shortages. We could all use some practice too. I should have a whole crew here before the weekend, and be ready to put them all out in the field in two man teams by Monday morning. That's one of the changes I think we should make. Send each new guy out with someone that already knows how to sell enough to meet his daily quotas. I already have a plan to slowly wean them away from each other as their sales get consistently better."

"If you already have a full crew recruited and coming in, go ahead and put yourself and your people out on the street. It can't hurt for all of you to be polishing up your sales skills. I'll even set the four of you up with a little incentive. If you and all the old crew members can set up one hundred new accounts by five o'clock this Friday, you can all sell the route yourselves and split whatever money you get for it among yourselves. Each new account counts towards one percent of the route sales price. That's how I want the bonus paid out, so keep track of who sells what. This is only a one time deal for you and the old sales team. I'm not counting any accounts sold by anyone who might be out training with you."

From the grin on Kyle's face, and the way the other three were smiling, I quickly deduced that all four of them were probably strapped for cash. I told Kyle that I wanted him back in my office by four o'clock, with all the sales results, including names and locations for all accounts they'd opened. I told him to go ahead and inform Doug that it was okay for them to take out four of the trucks we kept for route drivers who suffered mechanical breakdowns with their own delivery vehicles.

At ten o'clock, Joyce and Cindy came into the office. Cindy looked a little embarrassed. Joyce had a wolfish grin, and did everything but smack her lips to show her satisfaction to me. I smiled and wished them both a good morning.

"Cindy, how well do you know that cousin of yours that works over at the Tupelo plant?" I had remembered that a family member worked over there. I was hoping Cindy could talk to him and let him know that we were prepared to do the right thing with those two injured workers, and that, if the workers did vote in a union, in all likelihood they would see the number of their jobs shrink quickly down to a fifth of what had previously existed.

"He isn't a cousin. He was married to my Aunt Glenda. His last name is Macklinson too, but his is a different family, the Mississippi Macklinsons. I don't know him at all, but Daddy does. Phil might be a better one to do it though. He and Joe used to go fishing together a lot. I'm not sure it would be legal for any of us to say anything to him that might affect the union vote. Phil could get in a lot of trouble."

I didn't want anyone to get in trouble. Eighty men and women losing their jobs was trouble too. I wasn't sure about what I should do. The safest thing would have been to sit back and let them go ahead and vote. Our automated plants were all much more efficient, and could easily be operated around the clock, because of our greatly reduced labor costs.

If I had been the plant manager over in Tupelo, I'd have set up a little tour of one of our automated plants for some of the older Tupelo workers, long before they got to the point where they were ready to vote in a union.

The workers at our older plant in Omaha hated to go over to the newer one. They could see right away how many fewer workers it took to put out much more product than the older plant did.

One of the things I always admired about my father was the fact that he never even considered converting the older Lucas Company plant to fuller automation. I knew he wouldn't want to do it in Tupelo either, but that he would do it, rather than be forced to deal with the union.

My last conversation with him had shown me that he was pretty dogmatic and rigid in his feelings about anything having to do with unions. I made my decision.

"Cindy, please go find Phil and tell him I need to see him."

After Cindy left, I told Joyce to make herself scarce when Phil arrived. What I had to say to Phil, I wanted to say privately. This was something where it would be much better if only Phil and I knew what had been said.

He came to my office after a wait of five minutes or so. Joyce got up and left, closing my door behind her. Phil looked around nervously, probably wondering if he had done something wrong.

"Phil, come here and have a seat. This is about that vote they're taking over in Tupelo. You know anything about that?" Phil was sitting down as I finished speaking.

"I heard about it. Unions won't be good for what we're doing here. Is this about Joe?"

"Its about me letting you know what the company has decided to do if the union gets voted in. First, no matter how that vote ends up turning out, those two men who were hurt are going to be treated fairly. I don't care what the insurance company is claiming, they were hurt working for us, and we owe it to them and their families to try to make sure they don't suffer financially, on top of all the rest of it. That doesn't have anything to do with the union question. Its what we should have done a long time before now."

Phil nodded his agreement with me. I resumed speaking.

"What I'm going to tell you next does have to do with the union question. If the union gets voted in, my father plans to retrofit the Tupelo plant and put in automated ovens and packaging machinery. We've done this with several of our other plants. Usually, when we build anything new, its automated. If we do it in Tupelo, the hundred people who work there now will be fighting for the fifteen to twenty jobs that will be available. Joe's job will be safe anyway, because he has two years left on his guaranteed employment contract, the one we signed when we bought your family out here. His is the only contract that's never been breached. I just found out this morning that he's a Mississippi Macklinson. Maybe that explains why he isn't always quitting his job."

"I haven't quit for three years, Kenny."

"No, but I'll bet you've thought about it."

"If you'd hired Gene and Larry back before you got sick, they'd probably still be here too. We learned quick how things were after you took over."

"That's one of the problems with quitting, Phil. Sometimes the company stops hiring for awhile. That isn't why I called you in here though. I called you in to tell you what was going to happen to all those jobs. I can't legally go over to Tupelo and tell them that they aren't really voting for a union like they think they are. This isn't something that we're threatening, its something that we're planning, as a response to them going union, but only if they do."

"You want me to call Joe and let him know?"

"If you did do that, you'd have to be pretty sure that Joe didn't tell anyone the information came from an employee of the plant. It would be better if he heard it from Gene or Larry. If you went to see Gene and told him exactly what I just told you, there wouldn't be anything illegal about Gene calling Joe and telling him some gossip he heard from his brother who does happen to work at this plant. I'll be honest with you, all I'm interested in is letting those workers know what their vote really means. After that, they can vote however they please. Telling them in advance of the vote shouldn't be illegal, not if it isn't something we made up just to intimidate them. If the union knew about it, I guarantee you they'd hold off on telling the workers until after the vote was in."

"Joe's a pretty quiet man, Kenny. He isn't the kind who'd stand up in a crowd and tell people what he knows."

"Maybe he will pass the word on to someone who is comfortable doing that. Even if he does nothing with the information, I'd feel better knowing we tried."

"Is it okay if I take off for a couple hours now? That election is Thursday from what I've been hearing."

"Phil, you're a department manager. You don't need my permission to do whatever you think you need to do. You're on salary, not on a time clock. I don't mean only for things like this either. The main thing is to keep things running here. I know you must get calls at home at night when something happens on second shift."

After Phil left, Cindy came back into the office. Joyce wasn't with her.

"Kenny, can we talk?" She looked nice. There was just something about her that struck a responsive chord in me. I didn't know what it was, but there were certain women who had that effect on me. Brenda had the strongest effect, then Cindy. Joyce had it too, especially those three times when she was pregnant, or anytime I saw her while she was nursing our children. I couldn't explain it, but it was there, and it was noticeable to me.

"Is it personal or business?"

"Personal."

"This really isn't a good time for me, Cindy. If its about what you said yesterday, or what Joyce said about you wanting to tell your side of what happened, it really would be better if you waited. I don't know how closely you've kept up with our family things, but a lot more has happened than you deciding you didn't want to be one of my wives anymore. I have a plan right now, with definite goals in mind. These goals have an order to them."

"If you'd just listen, maybe you'd understand that it wasn't because of me not loving you still. I do. I thought I was partly to blame for what happened to you."

"I think that too, Cindy. What you and Joyce were doing was a part of it, but I was probably going to have the problems I did sooner or later anyway. The thing with Kyle and with your father, all of it helped to overwhelm me. I don't blame you for any of it though. All I blame you for is not wanting to stay with us when things got a little rough."

"I wanted to, but I felt too guilty about what I might have caused."

"We can deal with this later, but only after I finish with all the things that need to come before it."

"Things more important to you than I am?" I could see her having a really bad reaction if I were to tell her yes in answer to that question. I realized immediately that I would have told her no and reassured her before, perhaps even changed my order around so that she and I could reconcile right then. That was before though, back when I was a different person. This was now, and I didn't plan to do that.

"You could put it that way if you wanted to start a whole new problem. To me, its like a lifeboat from a sinking ship, but this is just the reverse. A lot of my family is floating out there in the dark ocean, and I'm trying to get them back in my boat and make them safe again. Five of these family members are my children, and five of them are my wives. Emily and Shirley are out there with my children, with our children, and I'm going to get them back with me and safe again before I can worry about you, Dale or Eddie. I knew Dale and Eddie before you, so, for the plan that I have, you'll be the one after Dale and Eddie come back.

"I'm last with you then?"

"No, that would be Joyce. I blame most of what happened on Joyce. Not me getting sick so much, although she helped bring that on too, but for what happened while she was supposed to be looking out for the rest of my family."

"Joyce is still with you. She never left like some of the rest of us."

"Joyce wants to be with me, but she isn't. She might not ever be again. She definitely won't be with me unless I get Shirley and Emily back, along with my children. Before you say anything about me not being fair, I'm going to tell you that I don't care about fair in this case. Joyce let things happen that she should have prevented. These things hurt me, and they endangered my recovery. I don't think that's what she wanted to happen, but I came very close to never getting well again. Joyce needs to see to it that everything is restored to me."

"This isn't like you. You can't blame Joyce for all the things that happened. Joyce tried her best to get me to come to Ridgeline and wait for you to recover. When that affair happened in Los Angeles, with Emily, Joyce almost fell apart, because she felt like she had failed you."

"She did fail me. If you think Joyce couldn't have prevented most of what happened, then you don't know Joyce very well."

"From what you've been telling me, I guess I don't know you as well as I thought I did."

"Don't feel like you're all alone there, Cindy. I surprise myself sometimes. I know I'm different. Everyone I know well has commented about it. It wasn't that I wanted to change, but that was my only choice. I took the best deal I could get, and this is the result. It could have been a lot worse, believe me. Ask Shirley and Joyce sometime about how I was when I first was at the clinic."

"Every time we have one of our talks, what I end up being offered is always less than what you offered me the last time we talked. First it was for me to be one of five, then one out of seven, and now you're making me the last one of the seven. You keep making it harder for me to say yes to you."

"I warned you that it would be better to postpone our talk. I don't think of you as the last of anything. I love you just like I did before I got sick. When I woke up and the doctor told me that you had decided you didn't want to be part of my life anymore, I almost didn't want to go on. That's how much you mean to me. I told you from the beginning that I was already committed to others, but I wanted you too. None of that has changed. I'm still committed to others, and even though they don't seem to want what I'm offering, I can't move forward without making every attempt I can to change their minds and to win them back. If I put them ahead of you in the order that I'm trying to get them back, that doesn't mean I love them or value them more than I value you."

"I'm supposed to wait until you get all the others, or until you finally give up on trying to get them back?"

"I didn't ask anything of you. I'm telling you I love you as much as I did before I got sick, and that, when I'm with you, I still feel all the same excitement I did before. You feel some of that too, I know that. There will be a better time for you to make your choice, but it can't be now. You were the first one to bail out on me."

"That isn't how I'd put it. I don't feel like I bailed out at all."

"Call it whatever you choose to call it. When everything is said and done, nothing has changed since we first started having this conversation. You can decide how you choose to interpret what I've told you. I have my own plan and timetable, and I've told you what it is. You are free to stay with us whenever you want to. I still love being around you. None of that will change any of my plans though. Ask Joyce if she's ever been successful trying to change them."