Clemmie, page 5
Bill grinned. “Take away the hair, mustache, pipe and glasses, and what have you got?”
“You haven’t got Shirley Temple.”
“Stop dating yourself, Fitz.”
“Okay. You haven’t got Julie Harris.”
Bill crossed his fingers and said, “Don’t lead with the right.”
Ober’s private office adjoined the main conference room. It was the first time Craig had been in the office since Haley had retired. He had half expected to see it unchanged, but the redecoration was extensive. It was no longer an office. It seemed like a small private lounge, with leather chairs, draperies, decorator colors, a large photomural of the industrial complex on the east side of the river, showing Quality Metals and the neighboring plants. Miss Commerford showed him in and closed the door behind him without a sound.
Ober was alone, sitting on a couch, studying papers fastened to a clip-board. Craig felt relieved that Rowdy wasn’t present. Ober put the board aside, stood up and shook hands, and had Craig sit near him on a chair turned toward the couch.
“Maura and the kids enjoying England?”
“Very much, from her letters.”
“Good, good.” Ober packed his pipe carefully. “I’ve been thinking about you, Craig. About your work. Your record is good.”
“Thanks.”
Ober got the pipe lighted. “What you are doing seems to be essential. But I can’t imagine you being satisfied with the work.”
Craig said warily, “Why not?”
Ober shrugged. “It’s pretty mechanical. It has no scope. Got any idea how we could eliminate your job?”
“There’s several ways, all of them impossible.”
“What are they?”
“Put nothing through the plant but large runs of standardized orders. Eliminate design changes. That’s one way. Or tear this down and build a new plant, modern and flexible. That will have to happen some day, when this old crock finally won’t give any return on the investment. We’re operating on the basis of patch and pray.”
Ober nodded mildly. “You’re called an assistant plant manager. You’re a glorified production chaser, Craig.”
“Call it co-ordinator. It sounds better.”
Ober slouched and closed his eyes. Craig sat uncomfortably for several long minutes. Without opening his eyes Ober said, “Here we have a pretty problem. Fifty-five per cent of production proposes no special problems. But we can’t show a profit operating at that per cent of capacity. So we scramble for orders, and shave prices to build capacity up to the point where we get a return on the investment. The plant and at least half the equipment is obsolete. We get a lot of nuisance orders through the shop. Small quantities. The index of your efficiency, Fitz, is the Percentage of Utilization Report. You fight with the order takers, with engineering, with purchasing, with production. And design. You’re caught in a closed circuit.”
“I guess that’s right.”
Ober straightened up, leaned forward and tapped Craig on the knee. “So let’s come up with the Fitz plan. A plan to get this plant—and you—out of this closed circuit problem. Bring me an idea a week from today, Craig.”
“But—”
Ober stood up and Craig stood up. “It’s an old gambit, Craig. I’m asking you to think yourself out of a job. Fly high. Look down on the jungle. Don’t try to cut a trail through it.”
He eased Craig into the outer office and said, “Commerford, set Mr. Fitz up for the same time next Friday.”
“Yes, sir,” she said in an outer-space voice.
“And bring me the Chernek file. See you Friday, Craig.”
As he went back to his own office he felt a sullen resentment. So Quality Metal Products was tottering along. That was obvious. But there were a hell of a lot of smart people trying to figure out an answer. Why expect one Craig Fitz to come up with a miraculous solution? You couldn’t pick and choose the kind of orders you wanted to fill. You couldn’t suddenly come up with a miracle item and make it and market it yourself.
He was correcting and signing memos when Betty came back from lunch.
“How did it go?” she asked quickly.
“I don’t know how it went. I don’t know what he’s thinking. I don’t know what he’s trying to do.”
“Did he criticize?”
“I don’t know that either.”
“But what did he want?”
He looked up at her impatiently. “Nothing at all. He just wants me to come up with a genius-type idea that will eliminate my job.”
“Dear God!”
The rest of the day was peaceful, relatively speaking. A vacation snarl caused an intricate rescheduling. An anticipated re-order didn’t come in. A breakdown turned out, for once, to be noncritical, as stand-by equipment was immediately available. Stores made an inventory error which could be corrected by an air-express shipment. John Terrill came in to grouse about the jigs and fixtures required for one of the new orders. Even though the troubles were minor, it seemed to Craig that he could very easily react to them too emotionally. He wanted to yell and wave his arms—or break into tears. It seemed like a monstrously long afternoon. He would have to come in Saturday to catch up on some paper work, and then endure the rest of the long, empty week end.
Bill Chernek left at the same time he did and, as they walked to the lot, Bill said, “Ruthie left me. For a week. She took the kids and went up to her mother’s place at Lake Ruskin. So how about we howl a little, brother bachelor? Take off some of the Ober-bearing pressure.”
“Not if you make puns like that.”
“Come on, boy. I join Ruthie a week from tonight when my overdue vacation starts. You’ve looked and acted sour for weeks. You’re stale, my friend. We’ll get tight and act loose. So say yes and start to cheer up.”
Craig cheered up immediately. “Where do we start?” He liked Bill Chernek. Bill was about four years younger than Craig. He was the purchasing agent for Quality Metals, buying all those items not centrally purchased out of New York. He was a big, cheery, blond man, rapidly taking on too much weight. He had been a college football player, a Marine, and later a salesman. He liked to explain how he’d had so many purchasing agents say no that he thought the only defense was to get on the other side of the desk. He was bright and shrewd and likable.
“I want to clean up first,” Bill said. “I like to drink clean. Tell you what, you go home and leave your car and take a cab down to Nick’s Bar on Mallory. I’ll do the same. Then we don’t have to sweat out anybody’s driving. After a little of Nick’s liquid inspiration, we’ll cook up something.”
Part of the enthusiasm faded while Craig was on his way home, bucking the heavy traffic on the bridge. Bill had a reputation for getting thoroughly loaded and becoming a problem. But it was certainly better than an evening alone, no matter what happened.
There was a letter from Maura. He threw it on the bed. When he was ready for his shower, he opened it.
CHAPTER FOUR
Craig, dearest,
It is one of the loveliest days, so clear and bright. It is like a day sent back out of my childhood. Yesterday was almost as good. We made a picnic and I took the girls in the Hillman to Lowestoft, to the beach there. We walked on the rocky beach. The sea was running very heavy. Puss just sat and stared at it, while Penny became quite a mad thing, running, waving her arms, and shouting at it.
I must tell you that I have been dealt with firmly by the girls. They consent to return to their normal identities when we come back, but while here they will be Priscilla and Penelope from now on. It seems to them more suitable. Long Melford is positively acrawl with children, and a great many of them seem to be children of my childhood friends. Penelope and Priscilla are quickly taking on protective coloration, dressing as the other children do and aping their speech. They indulge in long intricate games in the back garden, and become very sticky indeed if tea should be late. Poor dears, they seem to be caught between two worlds.
And now I must tell you about myself. I was half afraid to come back here. I had the idea I might slip back into this world I came from so completely that suddenly all the years with you would take on the quality of a dream. But I cannot get back into this world. I am a visiting American. I hardly know or remember the child who grew up here. I have talked endlessly with old friends, and they seem to recall perfectly so many things I had quite forgotten. They tell me of horrid things that have happened to people I cannot remember. It seems as though I am impersonating Maura Thatcher and I have not been properly briefed.
I made another poor estimate of the situation. I had imagined they would all be avid to hear about how we live. But they do not wish to hear about the States. They make me feel a liar when I say anything which goes contrary to what they have learned from the flicks. They live behind what I shall call the tea curtain, and do not care to have anyone attempt to dislodge their odd notions about the States.
Yesterday, darling, I met a man from my past. I believe I must have been all of twelve years old when I had a crush on him. He was very important then, because he had the only motorbike in the village, and it was a gaudy red. I had but to come upon him unexpectedly, and my knees would go all cottony, and the world would swim, and I would bumble about on the verge of a swoon.
He is a greengrocer now, and he must weigh close to twenty stone, a great gross man with an incredible number of chins, smelling of suet and spices. His wife is wispy and defeated. I knew her as a rather mild girl, some years younger than myself. After his wife went to the back of the shop, Harry seemed to think it required of him to puncuate our conversation with little pats and nudges. Believe me, it was a very short talk we had.
My mother, of course, is anxious to know all the details of how we live. But she has gone quite deaf and refuses to admit it. She nods and smiles and then says things that show clearly she hasn’t heard me. In some curious fashion her deafness does not keep her from hearing my father’s voice. She is somehow adjusted to it. They both quite obviously adore the girls. Tomorrow Elizabeth arrives from London with her two little boys. How we shall all fit in this house, I cannot say. It seems much smaller than it did before. Penny and Puss are all electric about meeting their cousins, and ask odd questions.
America has spoiled me. I had not remembered the inconveniences, the awkward things. The shops are very grim. Their stocks are so limited. Television is the current rage. Everyone talks about it, and spends endless time peering at tiny little screens which receive so badly that part of the time it is difficult to make out just what is being shown. I have had to be very firm with the girls. They have a tendency to expound on how much better things are in Stoddard.
My darling, it is very late and everyone else in the house is fast asleep. I think of you a great deal, and I am drearily lonely for you. The summer stretches ahead of me and it is endless. I am a displaced person, and I do not believe I shall come back here again. I think of how your lips and your hands might feel, and I grow as giddy as that little girl who watched Harry on his motorbike.
I hope your summer is not too desolate. Do not rattle about in that empty house like a lost soul. Go out where people are, my dear, and it will do you good. I did not like the sound of your last letter. The gaiety seemed so dreadfully forced, like a person laughing nervously while someone else stands upon his foot. Do not work too hard, and eat properly. The girls, of course, send their love. They whine for you at least once day. And so do I. In the next letter I shall send the pictures. I love you so very much.
Maura
He put the letter on his pillow, knowing that he would want to reread it when he went to bed.
Bill was on a bar stool when he walked into Nick’s. Nick’s was a Stoddard institution. Female trade was permitted in the glossy cocktail lounge adjoining the bar, but was firmly discouraged in the bar itself. The men’s bar was shabby, poorly lighted, with big brass spittoons, sawdust on the floor, dusty trophy heads on the wall. But the bartenders were deft, the drinks both generous and expensive, the bar stools comfortable. At five-thirty on any weekday evening, Nick’s was crowded with men from nearby office buildings, the courthouse around the corner, the city hall two blocks away. Lawyers, newspapermen, realtors, judges, politicians crowded the bar and sat in the dark oak booths that lined the wall opposite the long bar. It was a place to give and receive information, patch up feuds and make new ones.
Now, at six-fifteen, the quick-one-on-the-way-home crowd was thinning out. Craig looked at Bill’s Martini and decided it looked good. He sipped the first half of his drink standing half behind Bill, with Bill twisting around to talk to him. Then the stool on Bill’s right was vacated and Craig was able to sit at the bar. By the time they ordered the second round, half the bar stools were empty.
They talked in low tones about Paul Ober. “My opinion is very easy to state,” Bill said ponderously. “It is a little gem of simplicity. It requires little elucidation. I think he is a spherical son of a bitch.”
“Spherical?”
“Sure. That means no matter how you look at him, he’s a son of a bitch. From any direction. So God-damn sweet and gentle. He’s a sadist. He’ll cut your throat or mine just for the exquisite pleasure of watching our expression. He’s a specialist in keeping you off balance. He wants everybody sweating to keep their job. L. T. Rowdy is a prop. A menace, like a bit part in a Hitchcock picture.”
“I think you’ve got him wrong, Bill. Do you want him to get us all together for a big fat pep talk? Fight team fight. You know damn well old Q.M. is the lame duck division of the whole works. He’s here to do a job.”
“On you and me. Let’s stop talking about the sweat shop, for Christ sake. Let’s get this ball rolling. Joe, hit us again.” The drinks were potent.
“How many of these are we going to have?” Craig asked.
“Too many. Nobody’s driving. Hell with it. A big red steak will knock the edge off later and then we can start again. A big drunky bachelor evening, kiddo.”
Craig lost track of the drinks. He felt that he was talking persuasively and importantly. It had become necessary to him to explain exactly how he had felt the last few days. It was a highly personal thing that without drinks he would never have thought of trying to explain to Chernek. He could hear his own owlish voice, but he could not turn it off. “I don’t feel like me any more. It’s like losing hold of something. You know what I mean? I’m not wearing my own skin. Hell, it’s like there was a great big gap in time. I’m twenty-four and all of a damn second I’m right next to forty and where the hell have I been? What have I been doing? Like amnesia. I’m looking around and right now—get this—right now I got less time to go than I already had. That’s important. Less time to go. I’ve used up more than half. Doing what? Eating, sleeping, working. A wooden man. A wooden man with wheels running along a track down a hill, and when the track ends you fall off the edge of the world.”
Chernek nodded heavily and thoughtfully. “It’s tough all right.”
“Now you got to get this too. It’s important. People gotta think about this. Okay, you look at some old bastard.”
“I look at some old bastard.”
“That’s right, and you think he’s old all the way through. Old inside his head. But you gotta realize he isn’t. Inside his head he’s maybe a kid. And this age thing has happened to him. Like—like a disease. You get it. Suppose this old bastard, he’s sitting in a bus station and he’s wearing busted shoes and he’s got a bad heart and he can sit there and listen to his bad heart and look at his busted shoes and wonder how all this time happened to him. Where it all went, and what he was doing with it.” He felt the sting of tears in his eyes. He tapped Bill on the shoulder. “It’s happening to you.” He hit himself on the chest. “It’s happening to me. Every minute. It’s leaking way from you.”
“Leaking,” Bill said, his eyes half closed.
“So whatta you going to do about it. That’s what I want to know. In a few lousy little years I can be a grandfather. Me! Craig Fitz, a grandfather, and right inside here I’ll still be twenty-four and nobody will know it but me. You get it? It’s a great tragedy—tragedy.”
Joe, the bartender, drifted over and said, “It’s nearly nine o’clock, gentlemen. Don’t you think you should get some dinner?”
Bill stared at the small polite man. “When I want some eating advice, I’ll go to a dietician, buster. In Spain the right people don’t eat until eleven. But what the hell would you know about Spain?”
“Take it easy,” Craig said.
“Easy, hell! Scurry off, you little jerk, and whip up some more of these delicious Martinis. We’ll go for doubles this time.”
Joe had turned dark red. He turned white. “I’m afraid the bar is closed to you, Mr. Chernek. I can’t serve you another drink.”
Bill studied the paper money and change on the bar. He picked it all up very deliberately, hesitated, put down a dime. “This is for you, Joe. For superb service. And might I add that this is the last time I shall ever be seen in this over-rated saloon. Good-by forever, old buddy. Screw you, and the same to Nick.”
Craig lingered behind as Bill lumbered toward the door. He made an apologetic gesture, and left two dollars of his change on the bar. Joe nodded curtly and picked up the money. Craig hurried after Bill. Bill could be a very troublesome drunk. But he was the only man in the world who could understand how Craig had felt and what he was trying to say.
Bill stood, swaying slightly. “Never come here again. Craig, by God, I think you’re the best friend I’ve got in the whole world. You’re a deep thinker. You’re sort of a quiet-type guy, but by God I like you. I like you a hell of a lot.”
“I like you too.”
“We’ll have us a ball, old buddy. I’m going to do you a favor, and you’re never going to forget it. Come on. Let’s get a cab.”
“Are we going to eat?”
“Sure we’re going to eat. Come on.”
