Expect the Unexpected

by John A. Broussard

  The chicken stock shipment was due to arrive later the same day, and for once Carlton was glad to get away to the golf course. He had never been much of a golfer—he couldn’t see the point to hitting a ball and then chasing after it. He preferred bowling. At least there the ball came back on its own. But golfing was the way to keep in with the local business people. It probably wasn’t as important for him as it might have been for an advertising agency or print shop, but there were benefits, even for the town grocer.

  Mel Christiansen, the local used car dealer, would be making up what today would be a twosome, and Mel had given him a good deal on several pickups. It paid to humor him with a couple of hours of flailing away at the innocent white ball. Besides, Carlton preferred not to see the semi back up to the loading dock with case after case of chicken stock to stuff away somewhere in the store.

  Mel was in an affable mood. But then he usually was when playing golf with the grocer, since his own game showed up so well next to Carlton’s. It wasn’t until the eighth hole, while they were waiting for even worse duffers to move on, that Mel broached the subject. “Do you think it’s a good idea hiring a gimp to be out there in the public eye?”

  At first, Carlton was muddled by the question. Before he could fully understand what Mel was talking about, his golfing partner went on. “Wanda says he sounds like a drunk, and it gives the store a bad image to have some leering box boy limping around. She says she’s of a mind to take her patronage over to East Brentwood. It’s only three or four miles further and she goes there two or three times a week anyway for committee meetings and the like. And she was telling me only yesterday how some of the other women in town aren’t too happy with having cripples asking them if he can carry their packages.”

  Carlton wasn’t really sure why he was suddenly becoming so angry he was afraid to speak as Mel rambled on. He wasn’t about to tell Mel how to run his business. Why should Mel—or Wanda Christiansen—take it upon themselves to tell him whom he should or should not hire?

  Sure Wanda Christiansen was influential. Belonged to a dozen clubs, president of several of them. Lived in exclusive Lands End Mere, and those were customers Carlton most certainly did not want to lose; people who bought from the gourmet section where markups were four to five times as high as in the rest of the store. And the Centerville Country Club was located at Lands End Mere, along with the Country Club’s exclusive restaurant which was one of Carlton’s best customers. Mel and Wanda were Country Club members, of course, and Carlton could ill afford to have her bad-mouthing him with the membership. Even so, and for no really good reason, he remained angry throughout the rest of the game, mumbled something unintelligible in reply to Mel’s comments and managed to avoid the subject.

  The following day the chicken stock campaign began, and none too soon from Carlton’s viewpoint. It seemed every nook and cranny in the store held a six-foot stack of chicken stock cases. Recipes from Stanford’s book could be found along all the aisles. More were being stuffed into every sack leaving the store. Stanford himself, looking like a cross between Bill Gates and a tired accountant, was featured in a life-size poster on the front window of the store. And the agent had showed up early, and briefly, on his way to some other arcane publishing event to warn Carlton he had better have plenty of chicken stock on hand because “Stanford’s dynamite!”

  Carlton assured the rotund little man they could probably supply the entire Israeli army with the commodity, before, during and after Stanford’s signing. “See you on the twelfth,” the agent said at parting and added, “You’ll wish you’d ordered a hundred more cases.”

  Carlton’s response to the remark didn’t even rise to the level of skepticism. Instead of dwelling on the chicken stock plague, he returned to the problem of his new box boy. The anger at Mel and his battle-ax of a wife had abated, and he began to toy with the idea of dropping James at the end of the thirty-day period. It just made good sense. Good business sense. He could think of some excuse to let him go.

  Of course, Liz Stanton would be back fuming. Carlton, for the hundredth time, congratulated himself for never having had any long-term relationship with a member of the opposite sex, and especially thanked his stars for never having married. Working his way through the narrow passage between cases in his office, he settled down to go over the day’s receipts, secure and happy in the knowledge he could spend the rest of the night there in his twenty-four hour store if he so decided. There would be no one at home to call and nag him for not being there for supper.

  Well, he’d decide later about James. The thirtieth day of his employment would coincide with the big signing party. Carlton would have enough with that to keep him busy. But, the more he thought about it, the more convinced he was there was no point in antagonizing important customers. By the end of the probationary period the assistant manager could break the news to the box boy.

  ***

  The agent had exaggerated, but not by much. By two, on the afternoon of the thirteenth, an enormously energetic Stanford had charmed the growing crowd, had signed dozens upon dozens of his books, and had been instrumental in at least clearing the grocer’s office of chicken stock cases. Carlton now knew he’d have to be ordering more within a month.

  Looking down from the mezzanine he beamed at Stanford’s performance, no longer begrudging him the floor space the agent had pried out of him. Carlton was already planning to keep the spot piled up with Stanford’s books and cans of chicken stock for at least another week. Maybe he would have to order more even sooner.

  The only cloud was James. The grocer could see him carefully filling the sacks and offering help to the customers. Mitzi Trevor, one register over, was flirting with the cashier. Willy, two over, had started to stuff a sack of flour on top of grapes, caught himself at the last minute and repackaged the purchases. He was retrieving his motorcycle magazine from the floor where he had dropped it, without so much as “have a nice day” to the departing customer.

  Carlton shook his head, checked his watch and decided he’d have enough time to take a quick check around the store before his appointment with Cynthia Williams. She had called earlier and was coming by to talk to him about something unspecified. He tried to place her, but could only vaguely remember her as part of the Lands End Mere crowd. Coming back up to the mezzanine and looking through his office window, he recognized her immediately as someone who had been in the store in the company of Wanda Christiansen, and she had three other women sitting in the small office with her, all obviously Lands End residents. Carlton now knew the reason for the appointment.

  The same anger he’d felt during the golf game rose to the surface. What right did these busybodies have to come and tell him how to run his business? Even so, he managed to control his temper as Cynthia, the spokesperson for the group, launched off with an explanation for their visit.

  “We belong to the Lands End Mere Women Writers Club, and Wanda Christiansen is President of the Club. She has many good ideas. Lately, she’s spoken to several of us about a handicapped person you’ve hired here at the store, and its our understanding Mel Christiansen spoke to you about it also.”

  This was just too much. Carlton didn’t want to hear one word more about Wanda Christiansen and her great ideas. “If you mean James Lemieu, then you should know I’m sending him off to a week’s training. I think he’ll be an excellent cashier. I’m already planning to talk to my assistant manager about having James declared employee of the month. He’s an outstanding worker.”

  “My, it’s wonderful that you haven’t been influenced by Wanda’s prejudices. We feel it was truly marvelous of you to have hired James in the first place. That’s what we came to see you about today. We don’t share Wanda’s views, and we wanted to tell you just how we felt.”

  That was the moment Patti took to knock on the door, peer in and say, “I’m sorry to interrupt, Mr. Ritchie, but something important has just come up. The Country Club restaurant called and they’re ordering chicken st
ock to be delivered by tomorrow. Can we spare the ten cases they want?”

  CONNECTING LINE

  I took an instant dislike to Nelson Trowbridge, with his fancy suit and city manners, but then you don’t have to like someone to do business with them. If I did, I might as well close down my feed store. Some of the local farmers can be a trial and a tribulation.

  With Trowbridge, it was different, though. I wasn’t trying to sell him anything. He was the one doing the selling—a railroad. A connecting line to the Union Pacific was being planned and he, as vice-president of Western Services, was offering it to us. By us, I mean Rockford—or at least us, the three town commissioners.

  We didn’t need to be persuaded. I sure wanted the line to come through Rockford. A big part of my costs is transportation. The railroad could really cut back on those expenses. And Jeremy Barton, the chairman of the commission, owned the general store, so there wasn’t much question about where he stood.

  The other commissioner, Reverend Arthur Long, didn’t say much one way or the other, but I couldn’t see where he’d be against it. His congregation is the smallest one in town and the railroad was bound to make the town grow, which should do the same for his flock. The trouble is, he never has much of an expression on his face, so you can’t tell what he’s thinking. If he played cards, you’d say he kept them pretty close to his vest.

  So Trowbridge didn’t have to work very hard to sell us on the connecting line. The price we had to pay for it was the sticker. He wanted to trade the railroad’s land grant section for the town’s land grant section. Now, some people might figure six hundred and forty acres out here is pretty much the same as any other six hundred and forty acres, but it just wasn’t the way it works out. The railroad’s section was down by the river, and every dozen years or so a good share of it is under water during the spring runoff. The only way around it would be to bring in ton after ton of fill to raise the level of the track, something that wouldn’t be necessary with the town’s section.

  On the other hand, the town’s six hundred and forty acres is on high ground and in no danger of ever flooding. To complicate matters, though, the state has been talking about building a teacher’s college there—Rockford Normal. And with the town growing, we’re going to need the land for a city hall someday, and maybe a new post office. The railroad would pretty much guarantee Rockford would keep growing, too. So Trowbridge knew he could squeeze us.

  “The railroad section really isn’t suitable for the line.” he told us. “We’ll have to spend maybe a hundred thousand dollars just putting in embankments. And that’s not even considering the culverts we’ll be needing. Now, Riverdale is the other possibility.”

  Riverdale is twelve miles east of Rockford. Trowbridge knew putting in a rail line through there would be a disaster for Jeremy and me. As I said, the Reverend was hard to figure out, but I couldn’t see what he’d have to gain by opposing the line.

  Trowbridge kept pressing. “Riverdale’s section isn’t quite as suitable, but they seem to be willing to make an exchange. The line could go through their section on high ground, with a minimum of embanking.” And then he really began to squeeze. “If the road does go through there, you’ll be depending on stagecoaches and wagons for the next fifty years. Don’t expect those horseless carriages they’ve got back East to do anything for you.”

  I’d read about them in the newspaper, and cousin Fred had been to New York and seen one or two of them. All they did was scare the horses, according to him. And I couldn’t picture them coming down Rockford’s main street during spring thaw. Tough enough to get the wagons through then.

  Trowbridge warned us Riverdale was having a town meeting the following week to make a final decision about the transfer, so we decided to do the same—a special meeting to see if there was general agreement about what we should do. He left us, finally, with the flat statement how, if Riverdale approved the transfer and Rockford didn’t, the line would definitely go through Riverdale.

  The three of us put our heads together after he left to figure out what to do. Jeremy started off by saying, “He’s bluffing. Riverdale is at least two miles out of the way. And their land grant is full of gullies needing crossing, so Western won’t gain much if they do go for the exchange. And if they don’t go for it, Western will never build in their own section over there in a million years. It floods a lot more than the railroad section here does—just about every spring. I say he’s just bluffing.”

  Since the Reverend wasn’t a card player, I wasn’t sure he knew what bluffing meant, or at least he probably didn’t know businessmen did it all the time. On the other hand, I wanted to get his opinion. I guess his backward collar had an effect on me, even though I’m a Baptist. The trouble is, like I said, the Reverend is a man of few words. I’ve never been to one of his services, but I imagine his sermons are mighty short.

  “The teacher’s college will do far more for the town than the railroad,” he said.

  I could see right then, how the connecting line through Rockford was a long way from certain, what with Jeremy figuring Trowbridge was bluffing, and the Reverend coming out for keeping the town’s land grant as a site for the proposed college.

  I decided to at least keep them talking. “Maybe there’s some way to get the railroad to go through their own section. After all, Trowbridge said he’s ready to send in five hundred Chinese next month to get started, if we give him the land he wants. And, with the kind of wages they get paid, it really wouldn’t cost him much more to have them down in the flat putting in fill for the embankments on their own section, instead.”

  Jeremy broke in. “Maybe we can convince him the railroad section’s really a better place to build, the ground’s more solid or something like that.”

  I couldn’t resist laughing at the thought we could convince a railroad of something they knew a lot more about than we ever would. “Try thinking of something they don’t have to deal with every day.”

  “Well, since their section is so flat, they won’t have to make any cuts. The road will already be level all the way through.” By then I figured Jerry was just talking off the top of his head, so I didn’t even bother to comment. He just grinned and added, “Why don’t we salt their section with a few gold nuggets? Maybe we could get Clem Slater to do it for us.”

  Clem was Rockford’s perennial prospector. Every spring, as soon as the weather cleared, he would be off with his pick, packsack and burro to explore the region for miles around. Twenty years of his seasonal prospecting had produced one or two small nuggets, and maybe an ounce of dust, but he persisted, managing to find enough odd jobs in town each winter to provide a grubstake.

  Like I said, I have a lot of respect for a man of the cloth, and I guess the Reverend Long deserves as much respect as any of them. But to my way of thinking he just puts too much emphasis on walking the straight and narrow. After all, there are times when you have to get along in the real world. Liza, my wife, says I’m just a Sunday Christian, but business is business as far as I’m concerned.

  Even though Jeremy was just kidding, I figured he was pushing the Reverend too far, so I broke in before he could say anything more about salting the railroad’s section. “Naw,” I said. “Those railroad people have been around. They’d catch on real fast. It’d take more than a few specks of gold to convince them to keep their section. Besides, the local farmers would be the ones to believe it, and they’d be on our necks for not having traded off our piece for what they’d be figuring was a mother lode.

  Our discussion ended with our setting a date for the special meeting of the Commission to hear what people had to say about the possible land transfer. In the meantime, the three of us were supposed to try and figure out some way to get the line to come through Rockford without trading sections. I wasn’t too hopeful, and I’d pretty much made up my mind to vote for the trade. As far as I was concerned, the railroad was more important than any possible college or city hall or whatever.

  I
t was about a half-hour before the meeting, with the Reverend and me sitting in the schoolhouse where the Commission held its meetings. We were waiting for Jeremy, to see what he had come up with. I wasn’t any too happy with what I could make out of the Reverend’s current stand on the issue. It seemed altogether too much like “The Lord will provide,” variety.

  Just about the time I was beginning to get fed up with his view of the way the world works, Jeremy came rushing in. “You’ll never believe this,” he announced breathlessly. “Gold’s been found on Riverdale’s land-grant section. Everyone for mile’s around is out there staking claims. There’s isn’t a chance in hell—sorry Reverend—of the railroad getting Riverdale’s section. They’ll have to come through here for sure, no matter what.”

  “You’re right,” I agreed, once the full impact of what he was telling me penetrated. “The railroad will have to come through here now. And we won’t have to do any trading to get them to do it. But I just can’t believe there’s any gold even close to Riverdale. It’s too much of a coincidence. Who made the find?”

  “Clem Slater, naturally.”

  I looked over at the Reverend who was saying softly, “The Lord works in mysterious ways His wonders to perform.”

  That’s when the light dawned. “Say, Reverend,” I asked, “isn’t Clem one of your congregation?”

  CONTINGENCY PLAN

  Bureaucrats can be a pain—a thought uppermost in Dan Specks’ mind as he sat in the counselor’s waiting room. It would have been so much easier to just simply show up at a Euthanasia Commission meeting and present his case. After all, no matter what the counselor decided, he could still appear before the EC. She would simply be making a recommendation, which they could either accept or reject.