by Stan Hayes
“Daytona. Think Bisque can do without R&B Lee for a week?”
“I think so. Anybody else comin’ from Bisque?”
“Nobody, as far as I know. This’s Robbie’s show.”
“None of your relatives?”
“No. There’re not any close enough, physically or, I guess you’d say, spiritually. I’m an only child with two dead parents.”
Moses sat his Red Cap on the bar. “How is it,” he said, as if he’d received private notice that Webster’s execution had been stayed, “that of all of th’ shit we’ve talked about since 1946 hasn’t included that fact?”
“Most of th’ shit we’ve talked about since 1946 hasn’t been that personal, which is to say none of it has. I took my cue from you on that. Know what I know about you? You’re a New York Jew promoter, come here by way of Baltimore. And you didn’t tell me any of that.”
Moses cocked his head over slightly, picked up his Red Cap and considered Webster’s statement. “Guess we’ve just had too much else to talk about. But here’s the thing; I’m an only child with two dead parents myself.”
“ ’Zat right? How ’bout that? We’ve been havin’ our own widders’ and orphans’ society meetin’s all these years. And now you’re gonna ease my way outa the hellish loneliness of my existence up to this very moment. That’s damn white a’ you, Mose. Now I’ll tell you sump’m.”
“What’s that?”
“Remember Dotty? Robbie’s friend?”
“Oh… yeah. The Bible school girl.”
“She’s th’ maid of honor. An’ she’s lookin’ forward to seein’ yo’ yankee ass.”
The Roadmaster wagon was, as usual, the first car into the Hamm County Beverage Company’s lot. Moses was earlier than normal this morning, having slept fitfully and finally giving up the effort around four. Jack had been in New York since last Saturday. I miss that little shitbird, he thought. And soon as he’s back he’ll be gettin’ set to move to Athens. Joe College. Seems like about day before yesterday when he had to sit on two cushions to see out of the sidecar. Wait’ll he sees my surprise.
He walked to the left side of the building, unlocked the small steel door covering the alarm panel, and used another key to disarm the system. Returning to the front door, he unlocked it and went to the main lighting switch panel on the hall’s right wall, flipping switches that brought fluorescent lights winking on throughout the building. He got the coffee started and sat down in the office, looking out the window toward the garage doors that extended in a right angle from the main building. He thought for a couple of minutes about the day’s schedule before drifting back to the weekend in Atlanta.
Jack had asked to fly to New York this trip, and his parents had agreed. It would be a graduation present, Serena had said. He’d put the fuhbawl horseshit behind him and was an honor graduate of Bisque High, headed for the University of Georgia in the fall, and riding a Eastern Air Lines DC-6 to New York was, she thought, a fitting reward. “If you’re not busy Saturday, wanta drive us over to the airport?” she’d asked. “If you’re feelin’ sporty, we could have a night out in Atlanta.”
The Atlanta airport terminal was the largest collection of Quonset huts Moses had ever seen, its rattly corrugated steel surface mottled by years of weathering and broken up by various add-on structures of glass, steel and concrete, one of which was the observation deck on which they stood. They watched Jack walk nonchalantly to his flight’s boarding stairway, a couple of hundred feet away; he stopped at its base and turned toward them with a wave. Then he was up the stairs and inside the plane, unaware that Serena was still waving, a tear squiggling down her cheek. Moses had put his arm around her waist, hugging her to him as she peered at the DC-6’s windows, looking for his face in one of them. They stood like that while the crew started the aircraft’s engines and taxied away from them, a mini-hurricane climbing up onto the deck to test their grips on the grabrail. They stayed on the platform, waiting for the takeoff. “Well, he looked pretty grown up down there,” she said, “but he’s still my baby.”
“That he’ll always be,” said Moses. “whatever the world has in store for him.” In a few minutes, the plane taxied onto the end of the runway and began its takeoff roll. She squeezed his hand hard as it broke ground and climbed gracefully, deliberately away.
“Let’s go to town, sailor,” she said. “I could definitely use a drink.”
They’d gotten one of the Henry Grady Hotel’s best rooms, on the north side of the twelfth floor. They were high enough that they could see the tops of an almost unbroken sweep of trees that stretched to the horizon, on which, to the far right, sat a cool, smoky-blue lump that Serena identified as Stone Mountain. This town, Moses thought, has a lot of room to grow. The room service cart held the remains of a jar of caviar and a bottle of Mumm’s Cordon Rouge. She lay facing him, along his right side, his arm circling her, as they lingered in the afterglow of the first sex they’d had in nearly a year. “What time is it?” she asked him.
“Four thirty-five.”
“Oh, good. Nothing to do but you ’til dinner. Have I ever told you how much I love the way you suck my tits?”
“Umm-hm. But tell me again.”
“I mean it. The way you take your time with with each one, concentrating so much that it almost seems like you’re a blind man, trying to memorize every square inch. The way you make that ring with your thumbs and forefingers, and squeeze so the nipple skin gets tight as a drum. The way you lick and bite. That’s what I think of when I’m doing myself.”
“You have been paying attention.”
“You inspire me, Chili; I’m about to return the favor, assuming that sucking your dick’ll do it.”
“Easy, missy. Between that and those nice little cunt-hugs, you’ll wreck my health.”
“Bullshit. You’ll be around when we’re all dead.”
“Won’t be any fun without you.”
“Hm. Well, we haven’t had all that much fun lately.”
“I know,” he said. “Well, we’ve both been busy.”
“Yeah. Both of us stay busy. And you’re gettin’ rich, and I’m not.”
“It’ll be a long time before I’m rich. Your daddy’s rich.”
“And my mama used to be good-lookin’,” she said, green eyes misting over. “Long time ago.”
“And you’re the finest thing I ever saw. And a great artiste.”
“Time will tell. At least Hap’s getting a fair price for my work.”
“Jack and I went by the gallery last year. Madison Avenue, in the seventies; high cotton, as Webster would say. We got there too early; they were closed, and we never made it back. He told me that he and Larry went back later, though. He was really excited to see the piece of yours that was in the window, on display in that high-art settin’.”
“I know. The one I call Foundation. It was probably the first time that he realized how serious I am about my art.”
“Yeah. Up to now, you’ve been just Mom. And a pretty damn good one at that. But he’s old enough now to start to see you as a whole person.”
“I hope so, that sweet thing. He’s such a beautiful kid. He’s worked under a terrible handicap for all this time; Larry knocked me up, and we were nowhere near ready for Jack when he showed up. It seems that neither of us meant to let parenthood change us and our ambitions. I think Larry still feels that way; he’s seen as little as he conscionably could of Jack as he’s grown up. That wasn’t an option for me, and a damn good thing, too. I did grow up, to a degree, and one thing’s for sure; I’m prouder of Jack than I’ll ever be of anything else I do.”
“And I’m proud of you. And not nearly as puzzled as I used to be, although I’ve never known a woman anything like you. No small part of why I love you, I guess.”
“Do you think I ever knew anybody remotely like you?” she asked. “The way you accepted my reasons for not marrying you, even if you didn’t really understand them, isn’t something many men would be up to. What we have is as unlike
ly a thing as I could imagine.” She cradled his balls gently her hand, hefting their weight as she encircled the base of his cock with her thumb and forefinger. “But that sucker does have a firm foundation.”
“Mornin’,” Beverly Tyler’s voice echoed down the hall as she stepped through the door, bringing Moses back to the reality of Tuesday morning in the office. He looked at his watch; seven fifty-five. We’re off and running, he thought, his mood lightened as always by her brisk, cheerful air. He found it hard to imagine staying on top of this business without Beverly. She hadn’t been all that interested in staying after Fulford sold out, but Moses hadn’t wanted to lose any experienced help until he learned what selling beer was all about. An immediate hundred and fifty a month raise helped to convince her, and Moses could look back on that decision as the best investment he’d made in the business so far. It hadn’t taken him long to realize that Beverly, given the chance, could run Hamm County Beverage Company with very little help.
“Hiya, Bev,” he responded as her short, trim frame appeared in the office doorway.
She shot him a lopsided grin. “What’d you do, sleep here?”
“Probably should’ve; I might have gotten a little work done, instead of tossin’ and turnin’ all night.”
“Well, boss, it ain’t up to me to tell you your business, but I’ll just remind you of what Satchell Paige said one time.”
“What’s that?”
“The social ramble ain’t restful.”
Moses leaned back in his chair, clasping his hands at the back of his head. “Social ramble? Me?”
“I don’t know what else you’d call hangin’ out with the likes of Lee Webster and Nelson Lord.”
“So I like creative types. Who would you suggest that I ‘hang out’ with?”
“I told you, it’s none of my business. I figured you were already makin’ some new friends, like Mr. Browne, when you and him were in here for so long the other day.”
Moses chuckled. “No, that was just business. Monkey business. He was here to get my support- meaning money- for his city council campaign.”
“Is that right? I don’t even know who’s running.”
“Well, you’ve got plenty of time to find out; the election’s not ’til November. Since Browne won the Democratic primary, he’s as good as elected anyway.”
“Then why’s he need money?”
“To pay off his primary campaign. Remember? We gave him some money for that; now he wants more, to clear up his debts.”
“Oh. Yeah. That ‘Committee for Good Government?’ Back in February. That’s his outfit?”
“Yep. And the two grand we gave him wasn’t enough. I don’t know how good an idea it was for me to join the committee, but I didn’t care much for Browne’s opponent. Still don’t.”
“Who was it, anyway?”
“Edwards. Barry Edwards.”
“Oh, yeah. The Hopkins Mills Edwards?”
“Right.”
“Well, I don’t know much about any of those silk-stocking folks. Why don’t you like him?”
“You pretty much put your finger on it. ‘silk stocking’ is a good term for people who think that they’re better than other people. I’m afraid I just made my decision out of personal bias. Just don’t like the ‘cut of his jib.’ ”
“So are we kickin’ in again for Mr. Browne?”
“Yep. Sorry I hadn’t mentioned it to you before. Another two thousand.”
“OK. This can’t be just because you don’t care for Mr. Edwards, since Mr. Browne already beat ’im.”
“No, no. Remember what business we’re in. We want friends on the council, on the county commission, at the Capitol- anywhere we can make ’em.”
“Yeah. For a minute I forgot,” she said, flashing the lopsided grin and turning to go. “Beer’s as much about politics as it is about business.” She’d known that a long time, she thought, as she walked down the hall to her office. That was one thing that Mr. Fulford had always done- “kept his fences mended,” as he put it. Because Mose was so much more of a businessman, it was easy to forget that by now he also understood the politics of selling beer inside out.
She hadn’t been optimistic when Mr. Fulford told her that he would be retiring and selling the business. And to a Yankee at that! The one thing that had encouraged her was that Mr. Redding was his partner. He hadn’t made too many mistakes in business, as far as she knew, so she’d decided to give the man who was known around town as “Cueball” the benefit of the doubt. It had, she now knew, been a very good decision. At the time, all she had to go on was Mr. Redding’s involvement- and a hundred and fifty dollar raise.
It didn’t take Mose long to convince her that things would not only be different, but better. He spent more time with her that first month of the new ownership than Harvey Fulford did in a year. During their talks, she now realized, he had been learning the beer business. He asked a lot of questions. After all the questions were asked and answered, they didn’t meet for a few days. The next time they did, Mose showed her what he called “the blueprint.” It was his plan for making Hamm County Beverage Company the county’s number one distributor.
“Acme Brands is three times our size, Bev. How do you suppose that happened?”
“Easy. They’ve got the most popular brands. And they’ve got Zenith behind them.”
“The best brands and lots of money. That’s a tough parlay to beat.”
“Who wants to beat ’em? Mr. Harvey never did. I don’t see how we could.”
“I guess Mr. Harvey was satisfied with second place. I’m not. Wouldn’t it be great to be top dog?”
“I don’t know. Would it make that much difference?”
“It would make the biggest difference you can imagine. It would change what we do here every day from work to a life-size game. Instead of just coming in here and going through the motions of beer-in, beer-out, pay-the-bills-and-bank-what’s-left, we’d have an objective to get excited about. To kick Acme’s ass, every chance we get, until Schlitz and Anheuser-Busch take notice and come knocking on our door.”
“You make it sound like fun. OK, let’s say that playing this game excites me. I’ve been in this business a long time, and I’d like for us to be number one. But that’s me. If this is going to have half a chance of working, seems to me that everybody here’s going to have to bust their butts. Do you think we can get the guys out there, in the warehouse and on the trucks, to work a lot harder just so we can kick Acme’s ass?”
“Yes, I do. You said that I made it sound like fun. If it sounds like fun to you, the only woman in the business, it’ll sound even more like fun to those guys. Here’s a question for you; back in the warehouse, what will most of the talk be about today?”
“Easy. Fuhbawl.”
“Right. The BHS game on Friday, and Georgia and Georgia Tech on Saturday. And it’s only Tuesday. What if they could get half that excited about the Beer Game? Hell, they’re players in this game, not just spectators. If they stop thinking about just comin’ to work and start thinkin’ about being part of the team that’s kicking Acme’s ass, then all we’ll have to do is tell ’em how they’re doing and stay out of the way.”
“Like I said, it sounds exciting, and you must’ve thought about how to get everybody thinking that way. What’s the plan?”
“Glad you asked. Since I learned all I know about the beer business from you, I want to tell ya how I think it can work. Then you poke whatever holes you can in my ideas, and we’ll fix ’em.”
What Mose had thought of was to put a very simple plan in place, and make sure that everybody in the company understood both the plan and the part that they’d play in making it work. “It’s simple, Bev. We’re going to sell more because people are going to want more of what we’re sellin’. Then we’re gonna make sure that customers get what they need when they need it, and make sure that they understand that we’re here to help them make money. And that we’re damned happy to be doing it, becau
se it’s our job and because we all share a big fat bonus pool.”
That was almost four years ago. Like most plans, it wasn’t perfect, but it had worked. HCBC’s revenue was up almost twenty percent that year, and twenty-four the year after that. The company was able to get their brewers to contribute the majority of the costs of much larger advertising campaigns, and they had worked. HCBC’s brands started selling better almost immediately, and finally an Acme brand- Schlitz- switched to HCBC in January of this year. It was, she thought as she poured a cup of coffee, a lot more fun to work here than it used to be.
Jack banked into the parking lot, braking to a stop just a couple of steps from the front door of the Hamm County Beverage Company. He kicked the Harley’s stand out as he flipped the ignition switch to the OFF position and dismounted. As was his habit, he stepped back a few feet to admire the old warrior before trotting up the stairs.
Moses had just hung up his phone as Jack walked into the office. “Hiya, kid,” he said, getting up as he spoke. “How was New York?” he asked as they hugged hello.
“Just fine,” Jack grinned.
“ ’Ja call Linda?”
“Yeah.” I sure did, he thought, as a vision of the taut brown body moving over and under him slid through his mind.
“She doin’ OK?”
“Sounded just fine. Said she was workin’ too hard.”
“Aren’t we all. Glad you’re back, anyway. I called this afternoon ’cause I wanted to show ya something. C’mon out back.” He hurried past Jack, down the hall to the warehouse door. Jack stayed close behind as they went through the door, taking a right turn toward the loading dock. Then he saw it. Sitting there on its center stand, just inside the dock’s sliding door, was a luminous two-wheeled black and silver bullet. A Vincent.
“Hey,” Jack said. “Who belongs to that?”
“Yer humble servant,” said Moses, grinning broadly. “I decided you and George were havin’ too damn much fun without me.”
“Damn,” said Jack, walking around it, his gaze jumping from one shiny compound curve to the next, from the polished aluminum front fender to the huge black speedometer and sensuously-flowing gas tank to the sculpted dual seat. “Damn damn damn. Seein’ ’em in th’ magazines doesn’t getcha ready for this. He focused on the black-enameled crankcases. It’s a Black Shadow, right?”