by Terry Fallis
“EH4, I presume,” he said as he clenched my hand in a grip more suitable for dangling me from a helicopter.
“You must be the famous Henderson Watt,” I grunted, trying to bluff my way past the pain coursing through my right hand. “Does everybody around here use the annoying EH short form?”
He just chuckled. I’m not sure why, but that’s what he did. When I eventually repatriated my hand, it felt a half-size larger and throbbed like I’d hit it with a hammer in a cartoon.
“So, COO at such a young age. Congratulations,” I offered.
“Thanks. I’ve learned so much from your father. We seem to make a great team, and I really think we’re on the right track.”
“Good. I hear that MaxWorldCorp is giving us a run for our money these days,” I said.
“Not to worry. We’ve got them right where we want them,” he replied with a smile.
“That’s funny, Sarah tells me we’ve got them right where they want us.”
“Funny line. Don’t worry. Trust me, we’re in good shape. EH3 and I have been working on some big initiatives that we’ll be able to share with you when they’re a little closer to fruition. You understand, of course.”
“Of course, but I’ve already got a copy of Sarah’s strategy document. Is that what you mean?” I asked, knowing pretty well how he’d respond.
“No, I’m afraid not. Hers was a reasonable if rudimentary first effort, but it’s a long way from being much of a guide for actual corporate decision-making. She’s coming along very well in marketing. You know, getting her feet wet, testing out the training wheels, learning the ropes and all, but it’s a long road, right?”
“Seems even longer with mixed metaphors.”
He looked puzzled.
“Sorry, you lost me,” he said.
“Yes, I know.”
I popped into the huge Hemmingwear manufacturing facility on my way back to the car. I climbed up to the mezzanine that gave me a great view of both lines spitting out men’s underwear at the far end of the building and packaging it at an amazing rate. It was quite loud, so he didn’t hear me approaching. He looked lost in very unhappy thoughts, propping his head up with his left hand while holding on to the mezzanine railing with the other. I put my hand on his shoulder. He jerked away, startled, before lifting his eyes to mine.
Carlos Mendez broke into a grin and spread his arms wide open. I gave him a hug.
“Geez, you scared the crap out of me,” he said. “So you’ve come back to us, oh great EH4.”
“Good to see you, Carlos. I didn’t mean to scare you,” I replied. “Do you not age like the rest of us? You look good.”
Carlos pretty well grew up at Hemmingwear. His mother worked for most of her life in the plant. His father had died in a car accident not long after the family moved up to Chicago from Mexico. Hemmingwear became Carlos’s second home. His mother worked very hard, learned English, and insisted Carlos study hard so he wouldn’t have to work in a garment operation his whole life. There’s an irony. Carlos not only went to school, he excelled. Yet he’s never worked anywhere else. He did his MBA at Harvard, on a full scholarship. He didn’t top his class, as Sarah had. He placed third. Through it all, he worked at Hemmingwear, long after his mother retired and passed away. At fifty-eight, he’d been director of manufacturing operations for the last decade, with no signs of slowing down.
Carlos knew this place inside out. Hemmingwear was still a non-union shop, due largely to Carlos Mendez. He was the voice of the workers, and he had my father’s ear, at least he used to. The company’s history of success had been partly built on the premise that if you treated your employees fairly, and occasionally generously, they would reciprocate with hard work and loyalty. It was a simple formula. But following it was seldom simple at all. Somehow, Carlos had made it work for a very long time.
“I’m too damn busy to age,” he replied. “The competition has got us hopping. We’re always trying to stay one step ahead. But every time I look over my shoulder, they’re right behind us and closing fast.”
“Can we stay ahead?”
“Well, your sister and I have been down on the lines searching from stem to stern for efficiencies that can help get our production time and costs down a bit. As well, we’re looking into ‘just-in-time’ delivery of some of our input materials so we don’t have to warehouse so much. It costs money to carry a big warehousing operation. If we could close Warehouse 2 and get along with Warehouse 1 alone, that would save some dough, too. There’s also a bunch of other smaller changes we could make. All of this will translate into better margins, or give us the room to lower prices, without affecting profit.”
“So, what’s EH3 saying about your changes?”
“That’s the thing. I don’t know. Ever since the whiz kid showed up as COO, I rarely get to see your father. Everything has to go through Watt.”
“Okay, so what’s he saying about your ideas?”
“Not too much. I get a lot of ‘leave it with me’ but very few green lights.”
“Hmmm.”
“If we can’t get approval on these small changes, we’re never going to be able to do some of the bigger stuff Sarah has been cooking up,” Carlos said, shaking his head. “You know, you’ve got one smart sister, Hem.”
“I know that. You know that. Why doesn’t anyone else around here know that?”
Carlos just shrugged.
“So what do you really think of this Henderson Watt dude?” I asked.
Carlos looked off into space for a few beats. His face clouded and he looked older all of sudden.
“All I can say is that I’ve been doing a lot of soul-searching lately, thinking through my options, you know?” Carlos said. Then he seemed to catch himself. “My mother always taught me to keep my yap shut if I had nothing good to say about somebody.”
Carlos mimed zipping his lips. Then he squeezed my shoulder and headed slowly down the metal stairs onto the floor of Line 1. That was odd. I’d never really seen him like that. He looked so … tired and sad.
Saturday morning, I awoke in the bedroom and in the bed of my childhood. Nothing had changed. The Chicago Blackhawks poster was a little more curled at the edges, but still it clung to the wall. My Hardy Boys books were still there lined up on the bookshelves above my desk. I knew if I opened the desk drawers, all the stuff I’d stashed growing up would still be there. I left them closed. It felt very strange to be in my old room. I had good memories of my childhood. I got three squares a day, and never wanted for anything. Dad wasn’t exactly Ward Cleaver in the father department, but I just thought it was normal for him to be at the office all day every day, and exhausted when he finally made it home for dinner, usually after we’d eaten. In my mind, early to bed, early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy, and largely absent from his son’s life. But I knew nothing else. And my mother was always there, always.
As an only child, at least until I was a teenager, my room was a sanctuary for me. I would listen to the Blackhawks games on the radio, read, make forts, build things, and assemble plane models until the glue made me dizzy. One afternoon, just for something to do, I took the back off my clock radio, detached the speaker, then ran wire under the carpet so I could put the speaker on the other side of the room, high up on top of the window frame. There was no good reason for this. I did it because I could. I just liked the idea of turning on the radio next to me on the nightstand, but hearing the sound coming from a completely different location. Okay, that does sound a little weird in retrospect. Back then, I thought it was cool.
I leaned down and turned on the radio, for old times’ sake. It took a minute for the tubes to warm up, but soon the faint strains of music drifted down from the speaker still stationed atop the window frame.
My father had left me a brand-new Hemmingwear two-pack on the desk in my size. I wasn’t sure if he were just showing me the new packaging design or giving me two free pairs of underwear. I assumed he was killing two birds with one st
one, so I pulled on a new pair. Very comfortable, and I’m not just boosting the brand. One of the reasons Hemmingwear has hung around for so long in a competitive market, where longevity is quite rare, is that the underwear just feels so good when you pull it on. What a surprise! A timeless and simple formula that still works. Product quality and comfort sell underwear.
Sarah had left for a dinner by the time I’d emerged from my little encounter with my father the day before, so we’d arranged to meet at a Starbucks not far away on Saturday morning. She lived in a very nice condo about a ten-minute drive from the family homestead. True to form, my father had risen and left for the office before I had even stirred. Just another Saturday morning for EH3, which was just about the same as any other morning of the week. I confess I was a little relieved to find myself all alone in the family kitchen when I finally made it downstairs.
When I met Sarah an hour later, she was peeking through the front window of the Starbucks. She saw my approach reflected in the glass and turned.
“We’ll just stand here and wait for a minute. Trust me,” she said.
“Why don’t we just go insi – ”
She held up a Stop-sign hand.
“Bear with me and just stay where you are. It won’t be long.”
Two seconds later the front door opened and a rather large, older woman dressed in what Sarah told me later was a Lululemon outfit of some kind intended for someone with much less … dimension. Following her out the door were her two tiny long-haired dachshunds. They weren’t much bigger than large hamsters. I actually like hamsters. But these were dogs, small dogs, and that made all the difference in the world. I took two quick steps away from the door, giving them a wide berth.
“Okay, the coast is clear,” Sarah said as she held the door for me.
“That was very considerate of you,” I replied. “Thank you.”
“No worries,” she replied. “Haven’t you and Dr. What’s-her-name figured out your small-dog phobia yet?”
“Well, so far, we’ve determined that I have an irrational fear of small dogs, and should avoid them at all costs. We haven’t exactly cracked the ‘why’ yet.”
“Such penetrating analysis. She obviously can see right inside your mind. I now totally get why you see her twice a week.”
“Nice.”
“I really think you should ask Dad. He might have some insight. I can ask him if you like,” offered Sarah.
“No, don’t do that. He already thinks I’m a bit twisted. I really would rather he not know that I’m also still terrified of tiny, harmless dogs,” I said. “I just don’t think that would help strengthen our relationship right now.”
“Okay, fine,” she said, holding her hands up in surrender. “So enough about you. How was your little chat with Dad? Can I pack up my office and move down the hall? I thought he might call me last night, but the radio silence continued.”
“Well, I’m not sure you should be picking out paint chips just yet,” I said. “No matter how clearly I stated my case, he hasn’t yet abandoned the idea of me taking over. I used direct sentences that I thought left virtually no room for misunderstanding or misinterpretation. For instance, at one point I believe I said something like:
“ ‘Dad, I have no desire and no plan to return to Chicago to take over your position, notwithstanding family tradition. I’m not equipped for the role. I have no interest in the role. It wouldn’t be good for the company if I were to take on the role. I have other plans. Sarah is the much better choice, and she’s just as much a Hemmingway as I am.’ Or words to that effect.
“I don’t think I could have been any clearer. I was quite purposely using English as a blunt instrument. Yet, somehow, he came back with:
“ ‘So you’re still thinking it over.’
“I’m not making this up,” I assured her.
“I know. I’ve seen it, too. It’s a blind spot, all right.”
“Oh, I think you’re shortchanging it to call it a blind spot,” I commented. “It’s much bigger than a ‘spot.’ ”
“Okay, okay. But what did he say when you suggested I might be the answer?”
“Well, here’s the thing. I made a very strong case to move you into a leadership role with the ultimate goal of you taking over. I talked about how brilliant and tough and dedicated you are. I told him you’re so much better prepared to do this than I ever will be. And that this is your dream.”
“But …” she prodded.
“But he’s not convinced you’re ready.”
“Yeah, well, he’d say I was ready if I had a penis,” she blurted.
“Uh boy, here we go,” I said in mid-wince. “Sarah, why don’t you stand up and shout that a little louder. The woman who just headed into the bathroom may not have caught that.”
Sarah was not happy after I briefed her fully on my session with Dad. Not happy at all. We sat in silence for a few minutes.
“Okay, so tell me in a nutshell, what is your grand vision to ensure Hemmingwear’s prosperity and stave off the very aggressive folks from MaxWorldCorp?”
Sarah sighed.
“You really want to hear this?”
“I really want to hear this,” I replied, not wanting in the least to hear this. “Actually, it’s the last thing I want to hear, but if we’re going to crack this nut together, I’d better be in the loop on your vision.”
“Okay, in a nutshell, for this plan to work, we need to violate one of the sacred operating principles Dad has clung to for far too long,” Sarah said. “For the first time in Hemmingwear’s history, we spice up the waistbands with better branding and a little colour, and then we add a new product line. Hemmingwear for women.”
I turned her statement over in my mind, and each time I came to the same conclusion. Yes, she really had just proposed that Hemmingwear start manufacturing women’s underwear. Breathtaking.
“Are you deranged? You know exactly how Dad would react. He’d sooner approve a coffee table book on the history of the wedgie in America than give the go-ahead to make women’s underwear. You know that!”
“Well, if we can’t pull his head from his ass, we’ll miss the boat and Hemmingwear will limp along until MaxWorldCorp swoops down and makes Dad an offer he’ll no longer be in a position to refuse.”
“But what about the efficiency argument? Can we get the economies of scale we need if we double our product line?”
“Look, Hem, think it through. We’ve got two big, but separate and parallel, manufacturing lines. Both lines operate independently of the other and are at full capacity for two shifts each day. So we add a third shift on Line 2 and run the women’s product there overnight, reverting to men’s for the two daytime shifts. There should be no loss in efficiency or productivity. We’ll be creating another shift’s worth of new jobs. We’re paying the overhead on the manufacturing lines anyway, so why not spread them out over an additional shift? It actually lowers our per-unit costs. If the women’s product takes off as I think it will, we still have the potential to run a third overnight shift on the other line without affecting the dayshift production of the men’s product. And we’ll be introducing a comfortable, trusted product to what is essentially an untapped market for us. Women want comfortable underwear, too. That’s the path to prosperity and sustained market leadership.”
There was silence between us for a time as I considered her bold initiative.
“Well, that’s some ambitious plan you’ve got. But before we can get there, we need to cook up an even more ambitious plan for removing our father’s head from his ass.”
When I finally stepped back into my apartment Saturday night, I was eager to put Chicago behind me and get back to work on the novel. I pulled on my favourite sweats and my L.L. Bean flannel shirt. It’s what I always wore when working on the novel. I had to be comfortable. Then I fired up my laptop and opened my manuscript to where I’d last left off. You know, Chapter 12. Then, despite my desire and best intentions, I simply stared at the screen. Fi
nally, I managed to bang out a few sentences, but they were terrible, really quite bad. So I deleted them. I wish the delete key worked on Hemingway’s ghost. Alas, no. On a whim, I grabbed every Hemingway book I owned from my bookshelves, stuffed them in an empty box I found in the closet, and took them down to my storage locker in the basement. Perhaps his ghost lives in his books. I felt better when I sat back down at my laptop. But still, no words. I left a message for Madelaine Scott.
CHAPTER 6
“What makes you think Hemingway’s ghost is to blame?” Dr. Scott asked as I sat across from her.
“He just seems the most likely suspect,” I replied. “I mean, I have no personal connection to the ghosts of F. Scott Fitzgerald or Ezra Pound, now do I?”
“Let me try again. What I’m asking is, don’t you think that all on your own, you might be capable of failing to write, of being blocked, without any spectral assistance?”
“I suppose it’s possible, but I much prefer the scenario where I’m haunted by Hemingway. That’s just what it feels like. He hovers around me, trying to turn my long, flowing, ornate sentences into his simple, barren, boring, First Grade reader prose.”
“So resist him. Ignore him. Focus on your story, block out everything else, and write.”
“What a revelation! What an innovation! What an epiphany! If only I’d thought of that,” I mocked. “Sorry, Doc, I’m kidding. It’s just that, I’ve been trying to use my powers of concentration for six weeks now, to no avail. That’s why I’m here. The mind-over-matter gambit isn’t doing it for me.”
“Mind over matter? Are you saying there’s a physical presence with you in the room?”
“If I say yes, are you forced to send me to Bellevue?”
“Of course not. I’m just trying to understand what you’re experiencing,” she assured me.
“It’s not a physical presence. It’s just a feeling that Hemingway is not a fan of my writing and is trying to disrupt it by messing with my head. Does that make sense?”
