Chapter 1: The New Neighbours

"God damned sanctimonious jerk!" I mumbled.

"Who are you upset with this time?" my wife asked with a weary tone.

"The Right Righteous Richard Robillard, that's who."

"Oh ... him." Her interest was noticeable.

"That son-of-a-bitch is trying to shut down the seal cull. Half the fishermen on the coast are losing their boats trying to make a living while the seals harvest the salmon and anything else that's edible."

"I'm sure his heart's in the right place," she said absently.

"Too bad his brain isn't," I mumbled.

"What was that?"

"Never mind."

I'm not a commercial fisherman, just a guy who likes to get out on the water now and then and do a little salmon fishing. And it isn't like the salmon have become an endangered species. That by itself was almost amazing since a combination of spring floods and warmer water temperatures have done their own damage to the salmon returns. At least that is natural. Letting a population of seals in our little area grow from five thousand to over forty thousand is something else.

You could tell the frustration was growing when seal and sea lion carcasses were washing up on the beaches, riddled with bullets. You could easily guess who was doing that. It seemed like a futile effort to cull them anyway. If they didn't have any predators besides the Orcas, their population would just grow back to where it is today. They say only the transient killer whale population took seals. I wasn't convinced.

So what was I bitching about? Just about anything these days. My job was driving me to drink and it was spilling over into my home life. My wife had reached the absorption point and was often tuning me out. There were days when I thought my two kids were on a mission to aggravate me. I was getting to the boiling point and I didn't know if it would occur at home, at work, or ... both. And when I stepped back and looked at the cause, it was all because of me and my situation.

My name is Gerard David Saunders, Gerry to my friends. I'm just about to turn 41 and I've started to think maybe it's time for a change. My wife, Helen, is a year younger and is a stay-at-home mother. She's a good cook and a meticulous housekeeper. She keeps busy with volunteer work, lately acting as support for the re-election of said Richard Robillard, our local Member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA). That's our provincial government. Helen makes me proud of her and I love her to death.

I work for North Island Building Supplies (NIBS) in Courtenay, as an outside sales rep. My job is to seek out and sell a wide range of materials to the builders and contractors within our British Columbia trading area on Vancouver Island and across Georgia Strait in Powell River. We can do it all, we claim, even to supplying and installing the appliances, storage shed, or light fixtures. Naturally, we use sub-trades for the professional work. We are good at service too, and get very few complaints either about quality or follow-up. So why am I so frustrated and unhappy? Simple. My boss.

Thomas "Turkey Neck" Thompson is the general manager of NIBS, Inc., the holding company his father had created years ago, well before I joined. Big Mike Thompson was the founder and originator of the company. He was known, respected and liked throughout the mid and north Island and built his business on the back of his reputation. When he retired, he turned over the reins to his son, Thomas Norman Thompson, the aforementioned Turkey Neck. He set the template for micro-managing a business.

No matter what anyone did, Turkey Neck would tell them that it could have been done better. He used to brag that this initials said it all: TNT. In his mind he was dynamite. Most of us thought of using dynamite on him, putting it in a strategic location up his backside. He claimed that the success of any business is attention to detail, but Thomas carries that to extremes. He is the only manager in the business. He is General Manager, Sales Manager, Accounting Manager, Shipping Manager, Purchasing Manager ... well ... you get the idea. He doesn't do the work, just makes sure everyone who does reports to him. Look at all the money he saves on unnecessary management people.

I was luckier than the other staff. I could get out of the office most days and be free of him looking over my shoulder and wondering if I was doing anything useful. I'd worked at North Island since I'd finished school twenty-two years ago. I started with counter sales, then Mike gave me a junior territory. I did well enough that he improved my territory and elevated me to senior account rep status. I had a decent base salary, plus commission and it provided me with a nice income. Enough so that I could get married, buy a house, and have two cars. Not bad, in my view, considering I was a high school graduate who left school with no idea of what I wanted to do for a living.

A little over two years ago, Mike retired and moved to Kelowna with his wife, Sharon. When Thomas took over, everything began to change. He had to have his fingers in everything. He had graduated from Simon Fraser University with a business degree and instantly knew all there was to know about running a business. Naturally, he felt obliged to share that knowledge with us.

He became increasingly more involved in my side of the business, insisting on weekly reports. Activity reports he called them. He wanted to know where I went, who I called on, and what we talked about. On top of that, Thomas had to check my estimates before quotes were presented to any potential customer. I hadn't had to do that since my rookie years. Big Mike had never asked for any of these kinds of things. He looked at the weekly and monthly sales figures that the accountant gave him and could tell from that who was working effectively and who wasn't. If he had a question about something, he came to me and asked.

I found I wasn't enjoying my job any longer. I was still successful, but got little praise from the boss. I began to think about changing jobs, or maybe changing careers. Only one problem. North Island was unique in the business and there weren't any likely competitors whom I would be satisfied to work for. To find something similar to what my job used to be, we'd probably have to move. That would provoke a full scale revolt. Not just from Helen, but from our daughter and son, Dionne and Mike. Yes, Michael was named after Mike Thompson, his godfather.

Dionne was eighteen and just about to finish high school. She was set on going to college, but hadn't decided if she'd attend North Island College here in Courtenay, or Vancouver Island University in Nanaimo. Part of her indecision revolved around her latest boyfriend, Graham. He was a nice enough kid, but had already decided that college wasn't for him. He was going to work for his father in their irrigation and landscaping business. I suppose he expected to inherit it someday.

My Mike (I quit calling him "Little Mike" some years ago) was about to enter grade eleven and hadn't really chosen a path yet. I'd like both my children to get a college education, something I regret not having now. Mike was a big kid, and I mean that in both senses of the phrase. He was six-foot one and, I think, still growing. He played basketball and football for his high school team and was a regular, even though he was just a sophomore. He was fun-loving and good natured and always into something with his friends.

Hardly a day went by when I got home to hear Helen ask me, "Do you know what your son (daughter) did today?" I would then be filled in on their various misdeeds, ranging from a bad grade on a test, not cleaning their room, getting a speeding ticket (Dionne), or other assorted crimes and misdemeanors.

Dionne had a part-time job that kept her out of mischief most of the time. It also provided her with spending money, although to hear her talk, it was a pittance and we needed to supplement it with an allowance. I was against that, but Helen was for it. Dionne now had a job and an allowance.

Mike was hoping to get on at one of the gas stations, but they'd all gone self-serve and he was out of luck. He had his name in at a number of places, but interestingly enough, one of them wasn't North Island Building Supplies. I assume he was listening to my rather chronic complaints about Turkey Neck, a nickname that never failed to crack him up.

In March of Dionne's senior year she came rushing into the house, breathless with news that we were about to have new neighbours. The house next door to us had been up for sale for several months, and we wondered if it would ever sell. The previous owners were senior citizens and when the husband's dementia developed to the point where the wife couldn't look after him any longer, they moved into assisted living, putting their home up for sale.

It was a very nice home with a professionally landscaped yard, some lovely big cedar trees in the back, a great deck and an open concept interior. I had always liked the house for its simple design that could easily be cared for by two people, yet have room for several overnight guests. I considered putting an offer in on it, but the thought of moving, even that short distance, put Helen off, and I had to admit we weren't ready for that kind of house yet.

"So what's the big deal about the new neighbours?" I asked my daughter.

"There's a hunky young guy with them," she said with a big grin.

"Oh, oh. Graham doesn't cut it on the hunky scale, huh?" I said.