Chapter 4

It only took me one day to completely sell out of all fifteen hundred steak pieces I'd been sent with my last order. Tuesday was the date for my next promised shipment, and Jim had said he was planning on sending me a special order of between five and six thousand steak pieces sometime in the next three weeks. He was also going to try to fit three hundred into each box the next time he tried shipping an order of just steak pieces. There was a weight limit for those big containers, and steak pieces alone weren't as heavy as the jars and canisters were.

Jerky sales were still strong, but many people told me they were going to wait for the steak pieces to be back in stock. All three of the commercial accounts I'd put boxes of the steak pieces in had sold out of their initial supply. It looked like the steak pieces were beginning to erode interest in the beef jerky purchases. This wasn't a problem in my mind, but when I mentioned this to Jim Davis he expressed immediate concern.

"I need you to sell the complete line, Ralph. It's fine if you have a large volume on the steak pieces, but selling the complete line is what I need in order to be able to keep your overall costs down. I don't even offer the steak pieces in my shop. Ninety percent of all my shop sales are jerky, and the other ten percent is pepperoni."

"I told you I could sell thirty cases a week of jerky, Jim, and I still can. I'm selling at least ten cases a week of the pepperoni too. These are both higher numbers than you told me you needed. What I meant to communicate to you was that the steak piece sales are preventing the jerky sales from increasing. The steak piece sales are increasing faster than I can keep up with, while still trying to keep at the same ratio you set out for me earlier."

"That's different, and it isn't a problem. I can raise the ratios, as long as you buy and sell at least fifteen cases of jerky a week, and six cases of pepperoni. I sell my jerky by weight here in the store, and I generally pick out the pieces that are a little off in size, but still look attractive in my display cases. The jar stock are really the culls from my smokers. The steak pieces, all they've been so far is space filler for my smoker runs of pepperoni. An eight rack run of steak pieces is one full small smoker and two dryer rooms for two days each. I don't need to use my big smoker for the cross cut steak pieces, not if I don't have any pepperoni in the run to worry about."

"I can sell about five thousand more steak pieces next week, in addition to the fifteen hundred you told me you'd send me on next Tuesday. How many are on eight racks?"

"I can fit about one sixty to a side, so say three hundred per rack, because I hang only two sides. Twenty four hundred pieces per firing, but I could do two firings for you and put out forty eight hundred in three days by moving to a different series of dryer stations. If I start firing tonight, I can have an extra forty eight hundred ready to ship by Tuesday. You want me to cut back on anything?"

"Instead of thirty six cases of jerky, could you make it twenty four, and as much of that in Teriyaki as you can?"

"How about fifteen Teriyaki, six regular and three of the peppered?"

"Would that cause you any problems with maximizing out your runs?"

"The only problem I might run into would be not enough pepperoni to send you. I have about three cases in the dryer now, but I need at least one case for the shop. Can you make do with only two cases?"

"I have about four cases left now. Having the extra steak pieces to sell is much more important to me than whether or not I might run out of pepperoni. Can you schedule a run, after Tuesday, for more steak pieces and about twelve cases of pepperoni?"

"I can fire up a pepperoni smoke run on Sunday, and move it into the big dryer after I take out your current orders. That would give you twelve cases of pepperoni and as many steak pieces as I can fit in on the other six racks I have room for. About an extra eighteen hundred pieces. Should be ready to ship on Wednesday afternoon."

"So, that's sixty three hundred steak pieces, twenty four jerky cases, and two pepperoni cases on Tuesday, and another eighteen hundred of the steak pieces, and twelve cases of pepperoni on Wednesday?"

"Sounds about right. You sure you can handle all of it?"

"I'm still wondering if it will be enough. I'm getting a lot of interest on my commercial route for boxes of steak pieces. I'm thinking that I can put boxes of one hundred into all eighty of my commercial accounts. That's eight thousand right there."

"How about if I do another run on the cross cuts for you, just as soon as I clear out the Wednesday order for you? I'll be using the big smoker for a full jerky run, then I can do more cross cuts and pepperoni over the weekend."

By the time we got off the phone, I had essentially what I wanted, an extra five thousand steak pieces each week, a bit less jerky, and about the same amount of pepperoni. More than that, Jim Davis was assuring me that this was a schedule that fit well within his normal weekly capabilities. I didn't want to put any strain on his business, but I did want to make full use of the capacity he had available.

Nancy hadn't called or come over since the night she'd slept over at my house. Several times I'd thought about going over to see how she was doing, but something told me it would be a mistake for me to do so. I had offered her that new wager, which she had, so far, refused to take. I'd made the last move as far as going over to tell her she needn't take the last wager, so now it was up to her to move us forward from where we had left things.

By the time that two weeks had passed by since seeing her, I became convinced that she had become disenchanted with the way our game was being played out. I didn't feel there was anything positive to be accomplished by my backing away from the prior position I'd taken with her. As it later turned out, I had been right to not approach her, but not for the reasons I'd been assuming. Nancy had failed in her attempts to locate new work. The employment picture in Portland had turned downward, just like most of the rest of the country, and new jobs were hard to find. By waiting to contact her, I'd allowed Nancy to become discouraged with her future employment prospects.

I'd rented a storage unit close to the airport to keep all my extra product. It had twenty four hour closed circuit security, and a very good record as far as tenant contents not disappearing from their storage lockers. I was just coming out the front gate of the storage place when I saw Nancy driving by in her truck. I pulled out behind her, since traffic was extremely light, and was able to pull up alongside her at the next traffic light. This only took a matter of a minute or so to accomplish. I beeped my horn and pushed down on the window button to lower the passenger side window. She looked to see why someone had beeped, and then recognized me. When she lowered her window I hailed her.

"Hey Nancy, what are you doing way out here?"

"I filled out an application over at the airport. They said they aren't hiring now though."

"I still have that job opening servicing my commercial customers. I can pay you two hundred dollars for three days a week. Next month it will be four days. You can keep working after I move down south again. I'll have Jim continue shipping you the product you'll need. I can make it a full time job after I leave, because you'll need to do product pick up's at the airport too. I've got a storage locker about half a mile back."

"I asked Uncle Earle if I could, but he said no. Maybe he'd let me if you weren't here though. How much would I make full time?"

"Four hundred? I don't know what would be fair. Let me think about it. By now I was figuring you'd have taken that last bet I offered you, and you'd be moving down to Los Angeles with me when I left." She laughed.

"I'm not moving from this area. I love it here. All my friends and family live near here. I've never lived anywhere else."

The light had already changed twice by then, and some old lady was behind Nancy's truck, leaning energetically on her horn. Nancy put her truck back in gear and drove forward. I followed after her, to the next red light. The old lady stayed right behind her.

"Nancy, you want to stop off somewhere and get something to eat? My treat, of course."

"I can't. I'm supposed to be over in Gresham for an interview, in forty minutes. I wanted to get there early, because I'm not sure of the address I have for it. I'm afraid about running out of gas later too." The old lady didn't wait to start blowing her horn this time. The light had turned green about two seconds before she started leaning on that loud horn of hers. Nancy pulled away from the intersection as soon as the horn started. I pulled forward too, inserting myself right behind Nancy, before slowing way down.

The old woman and I moved towards the next light at about fifteen miles an hour, with her pushing on her horn the whole way. I kept this up for another mile and a half, long after Nancy had disappeared from my view. After a mile and a half of this, the old lady had suffered with my foolishness for long enough, pulling out into the left lane, quickly passing me by. She caught the next two lights, but got stopped at the third, with me changing lanes right behind her, then letting her know I had my own horn too, and that it was as loud as hers was. I didn't wait for the light to change to start in with blowing mine.

After I got tired of doing that to her, I changed lanes again and headed off towards Gresham. I couldn't find Nancy's truck, but I did manage to find a fairly substantial industrial park while I was driving around looking for her. I did some sampling and selling for about an hour, passing out my business cards while telling the people who bought from me that they needed to call me whenever they wanted me to come back to sell them more of my product.

I was in an insurance office giving out samples to three or four women working there when the owner or at least the big boss came back in the office from somewhere. He pointed at this sign on the counter that said "no soliciting".

"Don't you see that sign, young fellow?"

"Yes sir, I see it."

"If you see it, then why are you still here?"

"I'm not smoking."

"It doesn't say no smoking. It says no soliciting. That means no selling. Can't you read?"

"No sir. I'm sorry, but I never had a chance to go to school. We were too busy working the farm to spare any time for things like that."

"You really can't read?"

"No sir. I better go, cause I can see you're all too busy to bother with me."

"Wait, what was it you were selling?"

"Just these here steak pieces my dad's uncle makes in his smokehouse over in Idaho."

"Looks like jerky to me, boy."

"No sir. One taste and you'd see it wasn't any kind of jerky. This here is Uncle Jimmy's own special recipe. Nothing else like it in the universe. That's what he says, anyhow."

"You giving out samples? For free?'

"Yes sir. Would you like to try one?"

"Don't mind if I do, long as its free."

I gave him a whole wrapped steak piece to sample, and he opened it right away, shoving half of it in his mouth for the first bite, then followed that up by, pretty quickly, wolfing down the rest.

"What do you think of it, sir?"

"Not bad. In fact, it really is good. How much are they?"

"I sell them for a nickel each, or twenty five of them for a dollar."

"You're kidding me? How can you sell them so cheaply?"

"My uncle raises all the beef for them, and he don't feed them nothing but free grass anyhow. Only thing it costs him is for those little bags he puts them in after they come out of that smoker of his."

"Let me have a hundred of them then. You have that many on you?"

"Sure, I've got about ten thousand of these back in my truck. I'll go get them for you." I turned as though to leave.

"Wait. These are real good. Better make it three hundred of them, okay?"

"Yes sir. Three hundred. I'll go get them and come right back."

I went out the door of his office and took maybe ten steps towards my truck before turning right around and going back inside.

"Sir, I'm real sorry, but I can't sell you any of these here steak pieces. I just remembered about that no selling rule of yours. My uncle told me to never do no business in places where it wasn't welcomed."

I left before giving him a chance to make any response. I guess that old lady beeping her horn for so long had made me somewhat testy. I hoped he thought he'd missed out on the bargain of the century.

I found Nancy parked along the side of the road on SE Division street, just west of SE 182nd avenue. She had run out of gas, and was sitting in her truck, looking pretty unhappy about things. I pulled in right behind her and got out of my truck.

"Out of gas?"

"Yes, and I never did find that place I was supposed to be interviewing at. I'm so mad."

"I've got a gas can in my truck. This takes regular, right?"

"I can't pay you for it until sometime later when I get some money, Ralph."

I went to get my four gallon spare gas can and poured it all into her gas tank. It took her a minute to pump the gas up to her carburetor, but then she got it started and running smoothly again. I went over to her and offered her twenty dollars, but she refused to take the money.

"Nancy, you really should take this, just in case something like this happens to you again. It isn't like I need it, or that I'll have to do without anything until you find another job and can repay me."

"There aren't any damn jobs. Half the people I know right now are out looking for work. I don't want to take charity from you. It's bad enough my taking your gas. I wouldn't do it if I wasn't stuck all the way out here."

"There is such a thing as taking things too far, Nancy, and you're past that point already. Take the damn money and you can return it to me after you make it safely home today, if it turns out you didn't need it for anything. I don't like having to worry if you're stuck somewhere and out of gas. I'm lucky I was able to find you this time."

"What do you mean?"

"You think I came way out here to sell jerky? I remembered what you told me about being worried about having enough gas. I came out here looking for you." Nancy reached out and took the money from my hand.

"Okay, I'll let you lend me the money, but I feel real bad that I need to do it."

"Well, I feel good about it, so it evens out, doesn't it?"

"I'll pay you back as soon as I get some money."

"Please, stop worrying about it. I wish you'd take that job helping me. It would make my life a lot easier, and you'd have enough money to not worry about things like this. I don't think Earle is looking out for your best interests by telling you not to come work with me. I'll tell you what, come help me with all the commercial accounts, and I'll split the profits with you, right down the middle. Your share would be over a thousand a month, even if I don't open another account."