Under the Cypress Moon (33 page)

"I'm not just talkin' about that, Mark.  I'm talkin' about even just goin' back to our granddaddies and our great-granddaddies.  This place, your farmland, all of it.  My family's worked for yours in so many ways for so many years.  You're the first one in your whole family to finally see us like we're people and not just some kinda property."

"Well, doesn't that count?  I'm tryin' to do right by everybody.  You know that.  I'm not my dad.  I'm not my grandpa.  I'm not any of those people.  I'm me, just me.  I'm your friend, always have been, always will be.  Me and you, we've been through the thickest of the thick and the thinnest of the thin.  I always got your back, T.  I got your back.  I got your families' backs, all of 'em, you, your sister, your parents, your uncle.  Anybody bearin' the name King or Jones always will have a good friend in Mark Crady."

"I know, Man," T.L. assured.  "I know.  You're a good guy, Mark.  I was just venting about some stuff.  It don't mean a thing.  Ain't no thang.  Ain't not thang.  You're closer to me than a brother ever could've been, if I ever had a brother.  I got your back just as much as you got mine.  We're good, all good.  So, anyway, when do you think we're gettin' back to work?"

"You mean today with the cleanup or in general?"

"Both, I guess."

"Hell if I know, T.  Hell if I know.  If we get rid of the damn OSHA guys, hopefully, there'll be some more work today, but even if not, you're still gettin' paid, so don't worry."

"I'm not worried, but you know, after years of workin' every day here, it sucks not doin' my job.  I know I'm gettin' paid either way, but I wanna work.  I want things to be back to normal."

"Nothin's gonna be what you call 'normal' again, T.  You're gonna have a pay raise, and if you're still up for it, you're not gonna be workin' runnin' machines anymore.  You're gonna be supervisin' the guys runnin' the machines.  You're gonna be a boss when we get up and runnin' again!"

"I'm up for it.  Believe me.  I'm up for it.  Any chance to make more money.  But I still just wanna get to work.  I can't stand this waitin' around and not knowin'.  And if this place is gonna make it and keep goin' and guarantee I have a job and everybody else does, too, we gotta get things in operation again."

"Doin' all we can, Man.  All we can.  This is gonna cost like you wouldn't believe for everything we gotta do.  Don and I have to run some more numbers.  We may have to go crawlin' to some banks.  We don't know, but once things get goin' again, there's gonna be so much money to be made that we'll pull ourselves back up.  We agreed that we're not gonna let one single employee go.  Everybody, no matter what, has their job waiting.  I'll kill myself before I jeopardize anybody."

"Good to know, but don't talk about killin' yourself.  I'll kill you before you can kill yourself if I hear that talk again!"  As he said this, T.L. pointed his finger at Mark's face.  Mark knew the seriousness of his friend's words.  T.L. was one of the very few people that Mark would ever allow to speak to him in such a way.

"That makes a lot of sense, Dude.  You know I'd never kill myself.  I'm just sayin'.  I was just tellin' you how hard I'm workin' to get everything back together." 

"Hey, Mark," a voice came from a window just above the doorway overhead.

Mark looked up to see Don Birchum hanging his overweight body through the window, looking as if he might topple out at any moment.  "What ya need, Don?"

"I need to talk to you.  Could you come in here, please?"

"Well," Mark said, turning back to T.L., "Thanks for the smoke, Buddy.  I gotta go take care of things inside."

"Go answer to your boss," T.L. laughingly added, always one to use sarcasm to poke fun at his friend.

"Boss, huh?  Yeah.  I run this!  I am the King!"

"Nope.  The King is at home, in bed."

"Yeah, well, I will be King soon.  I'm King in place of the King, and the King says you're takin' an awfully long smoke break there, Mr. King."

"I'm King now?  Good.  You get your ass back to work then, peasant," T.L. said with a smile, taking the last drag off of his cigarette.

"Uh huh.  You might be named King, but that's all."

"Yeah, yeah.  Pick on the little guy.  Just remember who kicked whose ass in high school."

"One time.  We were drunk, and neither one of us could see straight.  You got lucky is all.  That'd be a damn good fight to have now.  I'm all dizzy and gimped up, and you got a bad eye.  I don't think either one of us could kick a rat's ass the way we are.  Anyway," Mark added, sighing over the thought of so much burdening his mind and time, "I'll let ya'all know when you can get back to work.  Hopefully, it'll be soon.  Just go back to the break room or whatever you wanna do, but be ready."

"Got it, Boss Man."

Mark stepped back into the stale air of the building, moving slowly, with his hands gripping anything that he could find for support, and up the narrow stairs leading to the platform above.  Don met him halfway up, and grabbing Mark's arm, immediately let loose a torrent of words, "Mark.  Mark, you ok?  We got a situation here.  The OSHA guys are talkin' about four million dollars in fines.  What do we do, Mark?  The head guy, though, he said that he might be able to make some arrangements for us.  I think he's wantin' a bribe.  What can we offer him?  We can't eat four million dollars in fines, on top of the almost two we got from the State.  We gotta do somethin' here!"

"No bribes."

"What?  It's a hell of a lot better than four million dollars!"

"No bribes."

"Mark, maybe that blow to the head is makin' you not think too clear.  We pay this guy maybe a quarter or a half a million, and he cuts our fines down, maybe in half or even more.  We eat a lot less cost goin' with the bribe.  Think about it.  We only have so much money in the bank to take care of the repairs, the expansions, the new equipment, the OT, and everything else.  If we can save a couple million, we gotta do what we can.  I say we bribe the guy."

"And you realize," Mark snapped so loudly that Don looked around him to make sure that there was no one to hear their words, "if we got caught, we'd be facin' serious jail time, not to mention it's dirty as hell?!  I've never bribed anybody in my life.  I don't believe in that.  That's some crooked crooked doins right there!  It's wrong.  You know it's wrong.  No bribes!"

"Ok," Don agreed, sighing, hoping that Mark might still come around but knowing that he probably would not, "no bribe then.  You're talkin', between all the fines from both sources, about at least five and a half million, if not more, plus millions in new equipment and millions in construction.  It could cost us literally every penny we have."

"Do it.  Do whatever you have to.  This place stays open and stays honest.  Maybe it hasn't been too honest in the past, but it will be now, as long as Mark Crady's around.  I won't have it any other way.  We pay the fines.  We work out deals with the companies, if we can.  We borrow if we have to.  We do anything it takes.  No bribes and nothin' else that's dishonest.  We do everything by the book."

"A part of me wishes I was talkin' to your daddy.  I know he'd go along with this, but you know what else?  A big part of me respects you so much for how you're handlin' everything.  It's hard to disagree with what you know is right.  You're a damn sight higher than your old man ever was.  He's a shrewd man and gets things done, but he does a lot of it as crooked as he can.  I don't know.  Maybe completely honest is the way to go.  Any chance your dad put away some serious money somewhere, somethin' we can use?"

"I can't really check on that, Don.  I don't have access to anything.  He's still around, and as long as he's still around, it's all his.  I can't touch it, even I wanted to.  I have a little bit of my own money I could put in, but I don't know how much it'd help."

"How much we talkin', Mark?"

"If I took everything I have saved plus, including if I take the trust money I can get my hands on, I'd say maybe eighty, ninety thousand dollars."

"The most that'd do is help us pay wages for a little while.  No more, huh?"  Don was secretly very worried, far more than he let on, not that he hadn't shown that was almost depressed the way things were.

"It's all I could do, at least until you know what happens.  I hate to talk about him dyin', but when he does, I'm sure there'd be a lot of money to get my hands on.  I don't know how it'd work, though.  I probably won't get the money right away, ya know?  It's gotta be tied up for six months or so, I think, before I can touch very much of it.  I think that's part of the reason Dad set up the trust fund, so I'd be taken care of.  It went into effect a few years ago, and I've been savin' some of it but not even takin' al of what there was.  It's nothin' major, though.  It's just a steady income."

"I have an idea, Mark.  Maybe it'll help.  I don't know.  It sure can't hurt to find out.  You might wanna look into it."

"Yeah.  What is it?  Spit it out, Don, before you keel over and die on me.  You look like you're about to have a heart attack or an aneurism or somethin'."

"Ok.  Go talk to Stan, and see if maybe you could get power of attorney over your dad and his estate.  That way, you'd have access to all of his money.  You know you can cover all of his expenses, too.  With him like he is, there's nobody to write checks to cover his medical care or his final expenses.  You get power of attorney, and everything is set, and who knows?  You might find at least a few million dollars tucked away, at least enough to cover most, if not all, of the fines."  Don displayed plainly his tremendous belief in the plan, looking the most optimistic that Mark had seen him in a long time.

"I don't know, Don.  I'd have to get my dad to sign the papers, and I don't know if I could do it without trickin' him.  I don't wanna do that."

"Yeah, but if he had any idea what's goin' on here, he'd sign.  He'd want you to take care of everything.  It's a long shot, but you gotta try, Mark."

"Tell ya what, Don.  I'll do what I can.  You make some calls to the banks.  I'll sign off on any loans we can get.  If we can get a loan to float us for a while, maybe cover the construction, or better yet, construction, outfitting, and all that, we'll be ok.  Just make the calls.  Do what you can.  If we have to get loans from ten different banks, we do what we can.  I think we have enough in the bank to cover all our upcoming expenses, but it'd almost definitely leave us broke if I can't get ahold of any of my dad's money."

"I'm on it!  I'll have some kind of word by the end of the day, I hope.  You got everything else under control then?"

"Yeah.  I got it.  I'll take care of all the guys downstairs and try to get the workers back to cleaning soon.  You go to your office, and make those calls. 
I want somethin' a.s.a.p.  I know you can do this, Don.  I have faith in you.  My dad picked the right guy to help run this place.  You're gonna take my place here one day when we build another plant.  I can already see it.  There's nobody I trust more to be by my side in this.  When we pull this off and get things runnin', you're climbin' way up the ladder with me!  We gotta start lookin' into givin' you a raise very soon."

"That's all good and everything," Don stated, sounding still very worried, "but there's bigger fish to fry right now.  We can talk about pay later.  Let's just make sure there's still gonna be jobs for everybody."

"Fair point.  Hey, Don"

"Yeah, Mark?"

"While you're at it, call Betty Jo."

"Call my wife?  What would I call her for?  She knows where I am and what I'm up to.  This place is my break from her."

"Just call her.  Tell her not to cook tonight."

"Ok.  Why?"

"You, Betty, the kids, you're comin' to my house tonight.  We're gonna fire up the grill.  There's been enough bad stuff lately.  We're gonna kick back tonight and blow off some steam.  Bring some of your cousin's beer.  No, bring lots of your cousin's beer, as much as you can get.  Buy it if you have to.  I'll reimburse you."

"Alright.  You like the stuff that much, huh?"

"Don, it's better'n most I've ever had.  In fact, I think it might be a good idea, once we get this place goin' at full speed again, to see about backin' your cousin to get his beer on the market. It might be a really good investment.  But anyway, just go make your calls, and plan on bein' at my place tonight.  I'm not takin' no for an answer!"

Don hurried off to his office to do as told, but little did he know that Mark had ulterior motives.  He liked Don a lot more than some others seemed to, and he not only wanted to relax but to mend some fences.  The company would need everyone working in unison, especially the higher ups and all of the supervisors.  Mark moved as quickly as he could back downstairs to find his friend.  After much searching and much continued dizziness, Mark finally found T.L. and Darius sitting in the
break room, coffee cups in hand.

"Hey, guys.  I'm still workin' on clearin' up all the mess outside with the inspectors.  I'll let ya'all know soon, but I had an idea about somethin' I wanted to run by you."  Mark felt quite confident in his plan. If he could just get Don, T.L., and Darius to his house, in a relaxed, comfortable environment, maybe, just maybe, the rifts between the Kings and the Birchums could be pushed aside.

"What is it, Mark," Darius asked, thinking that it must have something to do with the predicaments at hand.