Chapter 37

I got over to Macklinson's too late to see many of the route drivers before they left. I did manage to meet one older gent named Titus Tucker. He was over seventy years old, and had began driving deliveries for "Old Tom" back in 1941. "Old Tom, I found out, was Gene's late father. Titus and I spent a full morning together, riding around the outlying greater Birmingham area, making sales and deliveries to small, independently owned, grocery stores.

I was struck by the rapport Titus had with all the clerks and owners we met as he went about his route. At each stop, Titus was careful to make the introductions of me to his clients.

"This here boy is Ken Parsons. His daddy has taken hisself an interest up at the bakery. I brung him along so he could meet you all. This boy gonna own the whole shebang one of these days. Kenny this here is Lena Davis. Her daddy owns this here store, and four more just like it. Otis, her husband, he works over for the County, in the Hall of Records. You need anything from the County, you come see Lena, and her and Otis will sure enough hep you out."

It went like that all morning, making a steady three or four stops each hour. We stopped to talk to almost everyone who worked at any of these grocery stores. Titus would fill me in on who we had met as we drove to his next stop. His average sale was for between thirty five and forty five dollars, not very much at all. By one o'clock when he dropped me back off, he had made about five hundred dollars in gross sales. He was about halfway done with his daily deliveries. With the mark up he had, I doubted that Titus cleared more than about seventy five dollars per day for himself, and that didn't count the replacement and maintenance cost for his delivery vehicle.

I had delayed going in to see Gene for about as long as I thought I could manage without seeming too impolite about it. I wasn't angry with him about what happened at his house the night before, but I didn't want to get into another discussion about any future plans I had for Cindy either.

I walked into his office at one fifteen.

"Kenny, you been out with Titus Tucker I hear. Good choice. What Titus don't know about our business, isn't worth knowing. He's a talker that one. Good man though. Never heard one complaint about him."

"I went out to get some idea of what a driver does around here. Are all the route drivers like he is? He spends time talking to everyone he meets."

"He isn't much different from most I guess. Maybe he doesn't do as much flirting as he used to. Them checkers at the store, they're the key to keeping out the competition. If they like you, the owner isn't ever in when the other salesman come around making their sales calls. The cards they leave seem to always get thrown out with the trash. All the clerks understand this is how our drivers feed their families, and each account is important to them. That's how it works. Titus's wife used to always put up some peach preserves that Titus would take over to his people every Christmas. She's passed now, but we sure do miss her preserves around here."

"Today, I want to go over the accounts receivable. I don't want to be carrying a lot of uncollectible paper on our books from now on. I thought we could go through them on an account by account basis, and you could tell me what is real and what isn't."

Gene opened his top desk drawer and handed me a sheaf of paper. He'd already anticipated my request. Of the approximately seven million dollars I'd thought of as bad debt, he'd confirmed a little over six million as such. We went over the other accounts, the ones who hadn't paid for awhile, but, which Gene had included in his collectible pile. We discussed each of these, and Gene told me why he believed we'd eventually get our money. Almost always, the reason why he thought we'd get paid was because he had a secured promissory note, and trust deed or mortgage of some kind, as security.

"We aren't in the credit business, Kenny, but, sometimes, if its someone we've known for awhile, we will make an exception. I like to get something as a show of their good intentions. I can't always do it, but I try. That other debt, the write off, that was all handshake credit that we had to do to help some of our drivers get out of trouble. They give the credit, but we can't let them go under when all they was trying to do was protect their accounts. We end up spreading the risk by tacking on a penny or two to the price of every product that leaves our plants."

"I noticed that the price your drivers pay is a little on the high side. You don't worry that another bakery will try to lure your people away with more competitive prices?"

"It happens. I won't say it doesn't. A man might leave, but that doesn't mean all his accounts will move with him. Usually, it's around half that does and half that doesn't. We put someone else on the route, and make a special effort to talk to all the ones who went with the old driver. Surprising how many people stop going to the corner grocer, if he doesn't carry a certain brand of bread or milk. People are always willing to go where they know they can get what they're used to. Take that away, and they start driving into the city on the weekends, and doing all their shopping in the big chains. Larry is right about how we need to get ourselves in with the big grocery operators."

"He's right, but, it isn't the same kind of business that Macklinson's is good at. The small grocer is finding it impossible to compete against the big chains, but we have gas stations that sell bread and cupcakes now, and convenience stores are popping up everywhere you turn around. Those are Macklinson's real market, because this is the new mom and pop grocery."

"You think we should go after that trade?"

"Absolutely. Titus showed me today how much what you do really is a people business, not a bakery business. What works for him now would work just as well at one of those convenience stores. We have a whole line of packaged snack foods that your drivers could sell to make up for the smaller amount of bread they'd be selling. Titus sells about forty dollars per stop. He could do that easy if he carried a broader variety. To make up for that, we'd put your breads in all the bigger cities around here. Your sales would grow steadily from the new city exposure, and your rural drivers wouldn't have to worry every time one of their grocers went under. Business is changing, but it isn't shrinking, it's growing."

"You could be right. Did you have this in mind when you bought us up?"

"No. We've been looking for a way to come down here and become a real player in the area. We didn't really know what percentage of your total sales were strictly rural. Now, my

Dad is all excited because he wants to see if we can use your sales model to improve our rural sales in other areas where we're already strong. The convenience store idea, that was my wife, Brenda. She was the one who first noticed they were all selling bread and sweet rolls, and most of the same things we sell in our vending machine business."

"Cindy told me about this Brenda. Said she was the most beautiful woman she ever saw."

"She's the most beautiful girl I've ever seen too. You'll see her next week, and you can judge for yourself."

"Last night, that wasn't any of my doing. I felt bad at first, but it didn't turn out so bad, did it? Lee, liked to choke herself when Emily said that last. You think Cindy went to all this bother with her mama and me just to try to get close to your women folks?" I could see that this thought was troubling to Gene. He was pretty sure his daughter was gay, but he must have gotten his hopes raised up when Cindy came home talking about me. I guessed it was hard for him and his ex wife to give up their hope for this again.

"It's more than a little difficult to discuss sex with a girl's father, Gene. It isn't something you often get a chance to do. Cindy was telling you the truth about there being something interesting in the way we responded to each other when we first met. There's definitely something there, something physical. I think she's as hot for me as I am for her. I hope me saying this doesn't offend you?"

"Offend me? If you think that, boy, you don't have the first idea of what Lee and I have been through with that girl of ours. She had one bad apple, Colin Underwood, and she let that one ugly experience turn her away from being normal. She was normal before that, totally normal, just like every other girl."

"Girls liking girls doesn't have to be a bad thing, Gene. It seems to me that it isn't really as uncommon as most people think it is."

"Common is a good word for it, because that's exactly what that is. To a Christian, it goes against what's in the Bible."

"Well, I don't happen to agree with that, not at all. As far as Cindy though, I don't believe she's totally committed to only girl-girl things. I think she's interested in me."

"If that's true, then you have my permission, and her mama's, to try to get her back on the right path."

"Normally, I would do just that, and I wouldn't need your permission for it either. Thing is, after having this conversation with you, I couldn't do that."

"Why not? I already said it was fine by us."

"If I did, that would be adultery, and you don't have to be religious to know that goes against what's taught in the Bible."

"I take your meaning, Kenny, and if I gave any offense to you or your wives, then I'm truly sorry. The thing is, she's my daughter, and it tears me up inside knowing she won't have all the things we want for her."

"You don't think it might be the way you and Laura treat each other that has her turned off to men and to what you call normal relationships? After last night, I was thinking about giving up on women myself." I was kidding with him, trying to lighten the tone of our conversation, but he took me seriously.

"I never thought about that. You think me and Lee getting after each other might have soured her some? I'd hate to find that out. I always thought it was that damn Colin Underwood. She acted real strange when she stopped seeing that boy, and never went near another one since then."

"I can't say for sure, Gene. I did notice that she seemed upset whenever you and Laura got on each other last night. Maybe you should talk to her, find out for yourself if it bothered her."

"I know it bothered her. It bothered all of us. We can't help it though. Whenever we get within a mile of each other now, it brings out the ugly in both of us. I don't know how we stayed together for as long as we did."

"Make up sex?"

Gene looked at me, scowling at first, but then he started grinning and nodding at me.

"For someone so young, you make a powerful lot of sense sometimes. We did always have that part of it working smooth enough. It was probably the only reason we never did get around to killing each other. You really think that's why it took so long for us to get quits?"

"Satisfying sex is a big plus for any relationship."

"We had that. Only thing I really miss since the divorce."

"Maybe Laura misses that too. No reason you can't declare a temporary truce and keep the best part going."

"Maybe that's another thing that's different down here, from what you're used to. Divorced people generally avoid each other down here."

"In Kansas, we don't invite our ex wives to our dinner parties, but, that doesn't mean two people can't get together to scratch each other's itch. Seems like a better solution than going to some stranger for your relief." Again, I was only teasing him. I didn't even know any divorced people that still had sex with each other. I was surprised when Gene got quiet and didn't make some reply back to me.

I went down to the baking floor and went to try to speak to a few people standing around out on the delivery bays, smoking and talking together. They got quiet when I came close to them. People seemed more closed off to strangers down in Alabama. Maybe it was just me, or maybe it was them all knowing who I was.

I knew I needed to talk to people if I was going to do any good for this company, or for our other companies. I could only learn what I needed to know, if I spent time getting to know the people, and understood their thoughts. I stood there with them, trying to look pleasant, hoping someone would speak to me and break the ice. No one left, but no one spoke up either.

"I'm Kenny Parsons, from the new home office, up in Kansas. I was hoping that some of you would tell me what I should be doing to make this plant a better place for us to work."

"You could start by leaving us alone so we could have a smoke and enjoy our break." This was from a woman of about thirty. She was medium everything, with washed out dirty blonde hair. She wore dangling earrings in her ears, about two inch long earrings. No one else said anything.

"Is that what you really think, or are you just being witty?" I wanted to give her a chance to either say she was kidding or, perhaps, back down from her earlier statement.

"You asked us." She had a lot of attitude for someone who didn't even know me. I'd always heard that Southerners were a friendly people. I couldn't prove it from my own limited experience.

"All right, I'll leave." I turned and walked away from them. I'd never had such a chilly reception from company employees when we'd taken over a company in the past. I hadn't been prepared for it this time. I walked over to look at an untended oven. Someone had recently spilled about three quarts of batter, in front of the oven door, and just left it there. If an inspector happened to come by and saw that mess, it would probably result in a write up. I went and found a trash bin and got myself some rags, a broom, and a big metal dust pan that I found over by another trash bin area. I went back and started cleaning up the mess.

I had just started in on cleaning it up when the same blonde from the delivery bay came hurrying over.

"Leave off from there, mister. I'll get it." I ignored her, after first looking up to verify who it was that was talking to me. She waited a few seconds before starting right back in telling me to get away from the spill, because she was going to take care of it now. I continued ignoring her, picking up as much as I could, using one of the cleaning rags and the dust bin. The batter had congealed enough so that I knew it had been laying on the floor like that for at least half an hour.

"Is this your oven?"

"Today it is. Get away from that mess, I said I was going to clean it up." Before, she had sounded angry, demanding that I let her clean up the mess. After I asked her if she was the one responsible for that oven, her tone switched to be more defensive. I continued swiping with the rag, moving as much batter on the dust bin as I could before emptying it carefully into the metal trash bin I'd brought with me.

"Do you usually leave spilled batter on the floor, and then go waltzing off to take your break?"

I didn't try to hide the accusatory tone to my words. It came out like more than a simple question. We both knew that spilling batter, then leaving the mess on the floor, was a Cardinal sin. This was true of anyplace where food was being prepared. By the time I asked her that, most of the spill had been picked up. I began using a different rag, trying to clean the area where the front of the oven met the floor.

"I wasn't waltzing anywhere. There was someone out there I needed to speak with. I knew I'd be coming right back here. It wasn't that much of a mess anyhow."

"How long have you worked here?"

"Are you fixing to let me go because I spilled some cake batter?"

"How long have you worked for this company?"

"Twelve years. You didn't answer my question."

"It wouldn't be right to fire someone for a little accident like spilling some batter."

"I said I was going to clean it up as soon as I came back."

I stood up and handed her the last clean rag and walked away. I went over and got a mop and a bucket, filling the bucket with hot water from the large cleaning sink. I rinsed out the two dirty rags and then squeezed the excess water out of them. I found a bottle of liquid detergent and poured an ounce into the hot water filled mop pail. When I got back, the woman was on her knees, using the rag I'd given her to clean things up as well as she could. I handed her the two clean, damp, rags, and left the mop and bucket near where she kneeled. I walked away from her, satisfied that the rest of the mess would be taken care of now.

I had managed about twenty paces when Phil Macklinson sidled up alongside me, matching my strides with his own.

"I see you met Miss Kitty, Kenny. Isn't she a piece of work?"

"Is that her name, Kitty?" He nodded that it was. "Not very friendly, is she?"

"Not so's you'd notice, she isn't. She's been in a bad mood since they made Jenny Calvin the new lead person on the conveyor train. She thought she'd get the job, since she's been sleeping with Donny, the line supervisor. She might have done too, except for Larry."

"Larry, your brother?"

"That's the one. Larry was the one that jumped Jenny into that job. Passed over more than a few people to give it to her too."

Larry was head of production for the company. Deciding on who should get promoted to lead person on a conveyor shift was something for a floor supervisor to decide. It wasn't that atypical for one of the Macklinson's though. All of them seemed to cross over the normal lines of demarcation, as far as doing their duties went. Still, in a case like this one, I could see why some people might be angry.

"Does Larry do things like that often?"