Dead Peasants

by Larry D. Thompson

  His brother slammed down the phone. “Damn bankers! They’re nothing but a bunch of leeches, out to drain the last bit of blood from my body. Fuck ‘em. Fuck ‘em all!”

  Don didn’t say a word as he sipped his vodka. He knew Dwayne’s rages were like a summer thunderstorm, loud and raucous but passing quickly. His brother suddenly leaped from his seat, circled the desk to the bar and filled a large glass full of ice and scotch. He downed half of it and returned to his desk. “Look, Don, I’ve spent thirty-five years building this business. At one time I had a hundred and twenty-five dealerships in three states. Along the way I’ve been a good citizen. Hell, I’ve been Chairman of the Board at Methodist Hospital and Potentate of the Shriners. This year I’m President of the Rodeo and Livestock show. Everyone in Fort Worth knows my name. I’m even being asked to run for mayor. I built my business on borrowed money and always paid it back on time, every damn time. Then the Great Recession hit.” Sarcasm dripped from his words as he discussed the recession. “All of a sudden the bottom dropped out. The goddamn bank won’t renew my loans. Quillen acts like I just rode into town on the back of a turnip truck. On top of that my customers can’t borrow money to buy a fucking used pickup. Shit, I haven’t changed the business practices that made me a success. It’s the politicians, mortgage lenders and Wall Street that created the problem.”

  Don rose to refill his drink and said, “I’ve heard that speech at least a dozen times. I can’t do a damn thing about it.”

  Dwayne walked to the window and gazed off in the distance at some of his prize quarter horses that were running in circles around their pasture. He smiled at the sight and then turned back to Don.

  “I’ve been here sweating every phone call, thinking it will be from Quillen, ready to foreclose on a dealership. I’m barely able to make payroll, much less pay interest on any goddam notes. Then it hit me. I’ve got thousands of assets I haven’t tapped. I must have life insurance policies on over five thousand current and former employees.”

  “Actually it’s closer to seven thousand,” Don replied.

  “I’ve kept up the premiums on all of the former employees, some even before you started here. Been a good tax write-off and we occasionally have a payday when one of them kicks the bucket, only those paydays are now too few and far between. People must be living longer. I was figuring those policies would make for a nice retirement Now times have changed. Let’s cancel every damn one of these policies. The cash surrender value ought to be enough to get me out of this hole I’m in.”

  Don shook his head as he downed the last of his vodka. “Sorry, Bro. You’re wrong. We took out term policies on all of those employees. If you quit paying premiums, you get nothing.”

  ‘What the hell?” Dwayne exploded. “You’re telling me I’ve been paying premiums on policies that aren’t worth anything. How could we be so stupid?”

  “That was your call early on. They’re worth something only when the employee dies.”

  8

  Jack had time to check into the Residence Inn, clean up a little and pick up J.D. at his apartment, not far from TCU. After being greeted by a young man wearing a TCU golf shirt, Jack pulled his bag to the elevator, leaning on his cane as he rode to the third floor. When he got to his room, he pulled his T-shirt off and put on his own “Horned Frogs” golf shirt. Satisfied he was suitably dressed for dinner, he returned to his pickup and drove South on University. Two blocks from the campus he turned onto J. D.’s street and spotted him tossing a football with another guy about his size, obviously another football player. When J.D. spotted him, he tossed the football to his friend and loped to his dad’s truck. Jack had gotten out on the driver’s side and walked around to the curb. “Junior, boy, I’m glad to see you.”

  J.D. bear-hugged his dad until Jack broke away. “Easy, Junior. I’m in good shape except for a bum knee, but I’m fifty now. So go easy on your old man.”

  “Sorry, Dad, and remember I’m not Junior any more. I’ve got your name, but I’ve been called J.D. since I entered the Marines.”

  Jack nodded his understanding as he appraised his son. I damn sure couldn’t have done much better, he thought. Six feet four inches of muscle, and he looks like me, even down to that Bryant dimple in his chin. J.D. had a bumpy road, but now he was on the right track. His mother jerked him out of my life when he was eight, saying I was married to my law practice. Truth be told she was right. She hauled him off to Los Angeles where they lived off her half of our community estate, which was pretty damn good, even then. Jack knew that his son had made it through the two tours in Iraq without a physical injury, but he still worried about the mental toll of war. Was he a victim of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder? It might take years to know for sure. For now Jack just had to be the father he could not be for all those years.

  Jack saw J.D. for thirty days every summer until he was fourteen. By then he was six feet, four inches and weighed two hundred pounds. Unfortunately, he started running with a bad crowd and had no interest in visiting Beaumont. J.D.’s mother told Jack he was getting in trouble, petty stuff, at least when he got caught. And his grades were so bad he couldn’t even try out for football. In the spring of his senior year J.D. got in a fight with three guys in the parking lot of a bar, leaving all three unconscious. One nearly died and J.D. was charged with felony assault.

  Jack flew to Los Angeles and cut a deal with a young assistant district attorney. If the charges were reduced to a misdemeanor, J.D. would plead no contest and promptly enroll in the Marines upon graduation, never to set foot in Los Angeles again. The ADA agreed. The problem was the Marines. At first they looked at J. D.’s grades and his brushes with the law and were about to reject him. They changed their minds only when they gave J.D. a battery of tests that told them that J.D. had a potential for leadership and a little-used I.Q. of 140. The Marines took him and did as their ads promised. Four years later Lance Corporal Bryant completed a second tour of duty in Iraq and was honorably discharged.

  J.D. showed up at his Dad’s office in May and announced that he was going to enroll for the summer session at TCU. He had always liked Fort Worth when he visited his grandparents. Now he wanted to major in computer science and walk on the TCU football team that he knew was becoming a national power. Jack gave him his blessing and promised to fund his tuition and expenses, provided he made respectable grades.

  After J.D. enrolled, he found his way to the athletic department and asked to see the head coach. Coach Patton invited him into his office, which was rapidly filling with trophies and plaques as TCU ascended in the ranks of major college teams, and invited him to take a seat. Patton obviously liked J. D.’s size. If there was an ounce of fat on him, Patton couldn’t see it.

  “Tell me about yourself, son,” Patton said.

  J.D. unloaded it all, including his misspent youth, his lousy high school grades, his trouble with the law and finally got to the four years in the Marines.

  The coach steepled his hands under his chin as he listened. When J.D. was finished, he said, “We’ve got a damn strong program here. I pretty much built it myself. These days we compete with Texas, A & M, and Oklahoma for some of the best athletes around. You’ll have a big learning curve since you never played organized ball. Still, I’ll give anyone a chance. Go down to the basement of this building. Ask Smitty to give you a shirt, shorts, shoes and a jock. I’ll meet you on the field in thirty minutes.”

  J.D. did as he was told and was stretching and jogging around the field when Patton joined him. Wow, what a specimen, Patton thought. Too damn bad he never played before. “J.D. come over here,” he hollered. J.D. joined him at the goal line. “You warm?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Okay, I’ve got a stopwatch. Go out to the forty and sprint this way when I drop my hand.”

  Not sure what to do, J.D. dropped into a four point stance and waited. Patton dropped his hand and hollered, “Go.”

  J.D. strained as he drove his legs into the ground and up righ
ted himself in five yards. He remembered Olympic athletes flattening their hands to cut down wind resistance. In ten yards he was in an all out sprint. When he breezed by the goal line, he trotted to a stop and circled back around to the coach who was staring at his watch.

  “Must be something wrong with this damn thing. Should have made sure I had one with a new battery before I came out.”

  “I don’t understand, sir.”

  “This damn watch clocked you in a 4.45. Nobody your size has ever done that in my twenty-five years of coaching.”

  ‘Sir, I’m pretty fast. I always led the sprints in the Marines.”

  “Well, son, go back there and let’s see if you can do it again.”

  J.D. did 4.48. Patton shook his head in amazement.

  “If you can catch a football, you’re gonna be a tight end. Hell, with your size and speed, I may try you at linebacker, too. Go tell Smitty to give you a locker and some practice gear.”

  “Yes, sir. Thank you, sir,” J.D. said as he started to trot off. After two steps he turned and asked, “Can you tell me about the construction, sir?”

  Patton gazed up to where the western stands had been imploded in December, 2010. “Sure. Our goal is to remain a national power and bring TCU and Fort Worth a national championship pretty damn soon. We got more fans than we do seats. So, we’re starting there. Construction will be complete in time for opening day. Adding ten thousand seats and some luxury boxes and suites. Hopefully, it won’t be long until we expand again.”

  J.D. turned and resumed his trot from the field. Coach Patton smiled as he thought, Hell, this kid is big and fast and was a combat Marine. If I can’t make him a football player, I better just turn in my whistle.

  9

  Fort Worth had several nicknames and was proud of most of them. The original fort was built on a bluff overlooking the Trinity River, a suitable location for spotting marauding Indians. Then someone said Fort Worth was “Where the West Begins,” a shot at the neighboring city of Dallas, whose inhabitants people in Fort Worth thought belonged back east, maybe somewhere in the vicinity of Philadelphia or New York City. Dallasites retorted that Fort Worth was so dead that a panther could sleep in the middle of Main Street. In return the people in Fort Worth adopted the panther as the official mascot for their first high school.

  Then the cattle drives started in the late eighteen hundreds. One of the two main trails to Abilene passed through Fort Worth where the drovers would make one last stop to spend their wages on whiskey, women and gambling before heading into the Indian Territory. Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid spent time there as did Bonnie and Clyde years later. The area of downtown where they congregated was known as “Hell’s Half Acre” and the drovers began calling Fort Worth “Cowtown,” a moniker to this day folks in Fort Worth wear with honor, even more than a hundred years after the drovers quit coming and fifty years after Swift and Armour closed their plants and stockyards on the Northside.

  Dwayne Allison was born and raised in Fort Worth. He went to TCU for two years before he dropped out to sell cars. Over the years he had sold cars and trucks to half the people in Tarrant County. At least that was his claim. He started doing his own television commercials at a time when he couldn’t afford an actor or announcer. Back then a much thinner and very handsome Allison would be featured, dressed in a coat and tie with one foot on a truck bumper, his Nocona boots glistening in the morning sun. He always ended his commercials with the tag line, “Where deals are done.”

  He had started his empire when he learned that a small Chevrolet dealership was in trouble and for sale in Euless, a small town northeast of Fort Worth. He marched into a bank down the street from the dealership that Beauregard Quillen had inherited from his father. Quillen reluctantly agreed to loan him the ten thousand dollars he needed for a down payment.

  It turned out that Allison had a knack for selling cars. He was front and center on the sales floor every morning and stayed there until the store closed. If a pretty woman came in, he would look at her and tell her he had just the right blue to match her gorgeous eyes. If a farmer came in, Allison could take one look at him and know what size pickup he wanted. Usually, he managed to up-sell the farmer. Soon he was buying more dealerships. Beau Quillen started opening more banks, primarily to service the business brought to him by Allison’s success.

  Along the way he married. He and his wife had two sons, each of whom now ran a dealership, one in Oklahoma and one in Louisiana. He’d lost his wife to breast cancer several years before. In hindsight he was glad she did not have to witness the downfall of Allison Southwest.

  By the time Allison had a hundred and twenty-five stores, Quillen had fifteen banks and had proudly changed the name to Quillen Bank and Trust. They both moved to mansions in Shady Oaks, a newer golf course community for the ultra rich just a stone’s throw from Rivercrest. They often golfed on weekends and toasted each other’s success in the Shady Oaks men’s grill.

  Then came the great recession. Overnight, people quit buying cars. Many were no longer working. Others found no bank would loan them money. Car dealers around the country shuttered their doors and passers-by discovered weed-filled, empty lots that were once overflowing with shiny new vehicles. Allison had no choice but to consolidate some of his dealerships. Now he was down to sixty-five, and that number getting smaller by the month.

  10

  Allison gave his Cadillac to the valet and walked into the Fort Worth Club to meet with Quillen. He knew what Quillen wanted. The son of a bitch wanted money that he didn’t have. He took the elevator to the sixth floor dining room. As he stepped from the elevator, he threw his shoulders back, ready to do battle with the person who had become his worst enemy, his banker. He spotted Quillen at a corner table. Quillen rose as Allison approached. Quillen was taller than Allison, with short gray hair and prominent gray eyes. His mustache managed to offset a slightly prominent nose. Unlike Allison, his waistline was still trim. His personality was one that could dominate any board room. Even on Saturday he was dressed in a dark, custom tailored suit with a red tie.

  “Thanks for coming, Dwayne,” Quillen said as they shook hands. “I figured a Saturday meeting away from either of our offices would be best. Have a seat.”

  Allison sized up Quillen’s demeanor and didn’t like what he saw. Still he joined in small talk until the waiter took their orders. When the waiter returned with their lunch, they ate in uncomfortable silence. After he had cleared the table and brought coffee, Quillen spoke.

  “It’s down to this, Dwayne. I’ve got customers at every one of my banks who are behind on their notes. I’ve got people just walking away from mortgages. I’ve had to put repo men on as full time employees to repossess cars when people just quit paying. But, by far my biggest problem is you, and that’s because you’re my biggest customer. The interest on your notes alone is near twenty million, all of it overdue. Any day the bank examiners may show up at one of my banks, and it’ll be shut down within twenty-four hours. What the hell are you going to do about it?”

  Allison’s face reddened as he fought to control his temper. “Don’t push me, Quillen. You think I don’t know I’m behind on my notes? Shit, I’m doing good just to make payroll. Half my dealerships are gone. You want a lot to put those repossessed cars on? I got a bunch of them. I’m not doing a goddamn thing different than I’ve done for thirty-five years.”

  “Dammit, Dwayne, you didn’t answer my question. What are you going to do about it? I could shut every one of your dealerships down tomorrow. Hell, I’ll even own all of those quarter horses out on your ranch.”

  Allison pushed back and tossed his napkin on the table. His voice rose. “You do that, Quillen, and you’ll regret it. I’m the only one that can pull Allison Southwest out of this mess and eventually pay my debts. You shut me down, and all you’ll have are dealerships full of cars and trucks. Good luck selling them. I’m out of here.”

  Others in the club were now staring at the two businessmen
whose raised voices were disturbing their lunch. Quillen lowered his voice. “Look, Dwayne, I didn’t mean to piss you off. You’re right. I need you. Sit down, please.”

  Allison hesitated before returning to his chair. Finally, he reached into his shirt pocket and pitched a folded check over to Quillen. Quillen unfolded it and saw it was for $400,000 and made out to his bank. “That’ll put a small dent in the back interest. Can I expect more where this came from?”

  Allison looked around the room to make sure no one could overhear him. “One of my former employees died a few weeks ago. He never even knew I had a policy on his life. I had kept up the premiums after he quit. The company’s the beneficiary.”

  “Ah, yes,” Quillen said, his mind searching back several years. “I remember. You’ve been taking out policies on your employees for years. You used to give me a spread sheet of the employees and insurance amounts once a year. I haven’t seen a spread sheet in a while.”