LITMIR.BIZ

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a sign while pressing dry lips together. Earlier that day he joined others to boo maintenance workers nailing two-by-four foot signs to posts planted in concrete the prior week. As Dino predicted to Noel, the company reduced four warehouse truck entrances to two. Noel read one sign stating the far gate reserved for unrelated contractors. A second announced the main entrance he stood at restricted to employees and warehouse deliveries.

      Before and after the van crossing, no semis passed the union line. Noel counted half-a-dozen big rigs make u-turns at the intersection a block before the warehouse.

      Noel, harboring huge doubts this strike represented yellow brick road to utopia, kept quiet so as not to undermine friend Dino. In private, Dino confessed he favored continued negotiations and informational picketing without a strike. He explained to Noel that, although the employer had a legal bargaining obligation, Jove Foods cancelled last scheduled session and dared legal action.

      While Noel didn’t understand the behind-the-scenes jockeying, he marched in lockstep with a picket sign hoisted above right shoulder and hoped, even prayed, Dino could forge an early end. As he approached the newly arrived Silver County Sheriff’s car, Noel recognized a deputy’s face.

      “Aren’t you glad it’s not raining?” Bonnie asked. Painted dark red fingernails grasped a black baton. An unsnapped holster carried no weapon. Eyes shaded by a wide-brimmed brown hat.

      “Yeah, guess so.” He sidestepped out of march line. “Whatcha doing here?”

      “Protecting the public peace. Sheriff comes later.” She smiled. He ignored muffled voices mingled with foot stomps behind him at the entrance gate. “How long you going to be out here?”

      “Until the company negotiates a reasonable contract.” Noel’s quick retort, tinged with the personal bitterness of expected dried up savings, represented a response orchestrated by Dino.

      “I’m sorry,” Bonnie said, scanning the picketers. “I meant you personally.”

      “Oh, until ten, and then I volunteered for late afternoon, four to six.” After he spoke, his right hand fingers pushed through hair strands before being wiped on blue-jean pant leg. With a tighter two-hand grip, Noel waved picket sign in response to heckler across the industrial park road who shouted, “Go home.” Pro-union drivers passing picket line honked in support.

      “Heard Melanie Stark told a group of businessmen last week that if the union strikes, you can all be replaced. She claimed even she could earn a forklift certification and has.”

      “Is that so?” Pocket jingling silver coins reminded Noel of his Judas parallel.

      “Yes. A meeting reporter told me and Sheriff McHugh she said driving a forklift or picking product off a warehouse shelf is easily taught to anyone with basic intelligence and physical dexterity.” Bonnie angled face away from the advancing morning sun. “Ms. Stark claimed the company already delivered ready-for-printing recruiting ads to the Kanosh Daily Sentinel.”

      “Talk’s cheap.” Noel’s forearm wiped brow to spread perspiration beading from the unexpected early season humidity. “Hope she volunteers to run a forklift for twelve hours, not two minutes for a news photo. If she completes a full shift, bet she won’t be waltzing the next evening.”

      Bonnie’s quotation of Melanie’s belittling words ignited a cranial revenge streak. He mentally pictured Melanie crashing a forklift, lifting orange crates only to have them topple the forklift forward, and, the best image, a lurching pallet unleashing toilet tissue rolls to bounce off her bosom. Noel inwardly smiled. Manual work would definitely diminish Melanie’s abdomen baby fat. He spied two picketers crowd closer. “In two days,” Noel suggested, “the mayor will rail against the lack of speeding revenue and you’ll again be behind treed curves pointing a radar gun.”

      Bonnie frowned. Marched toward parked squad car, sound buzzing from a shoulder.

      Noel plopped into a lawn chair, and noticed the strikers’ settled in boredom after but an hour, which disappeared when an approaching vehicle kicked in strikers’ collective adrenaline. For fifteen seconds at ten a.m., when he handed sign to another, he watched Bonnie, ankles crossed, lounging against the squad car’s front fender. She gazed off in the direction opposite to where his parked van waited. He withheld a wave and exposed back to her in stroll away.

      * * *

      Inside the Jove Foods three-story headquarters, Melanie, in a darkened top floor storeroom, peered between horizontal metal blind slats cranked to be a quarter-inch from complete closure. She counted parading strikers. Stupid Idiots. Ruin me will you? Melanie repressed mounting anger during the elevator ride to the first floor conference room five minutes prior to President Chesterton’s mandated eight a.m. meeting. Seated, she silently doodled, alone in fantasy world envisioning Princess Diana. A bent forward, seated Chesterton traced projected sales figures contained in a three-ring binder marked confidential. Flattened brows and stretched lips indicated trouble.

      Melanie recalled one other experience when he appeared as he did now. It had been late one night as they shared a cocktail after a daylong seminar for store managers. She detected irony when he joked a semi-trailer accident had been the difference in missing a monthly projected sales record. He predicted he alone would survive any investor ordered corporate reorganization. Melanie entertained a brighter personal vision with the investors anointing her chief executive. After all, she could micro-manage better than he. She established great rapport with store managers.

      Chesterton lifted head to gaze at Melanie. “I must give you the dubious credit of correctly forecasting that the warehouse workers would strike.” CFO Stutzel nodded.

      Sales VP Dingo glared at her. She expected Dingo’s negativity for he abhorred any credit she received, sarcastic or not. Melanie realized Dingo harbored smoldering animosity for her caustic public comments about his blunder in ordering an unpalatable knockoff fruit drink brand. So what, she thought. Store managers in four states griped about unsold cases stacked ceiling-high. She negotiated charity donation by non-union workers. Store managers cheered the wage savings.

      “Thank you.” She tipped head with pursed lips forward.

      “Now,” Chesterton continued, “until we can train replacement workers, Vern, detail for us the contingency plans for vendor direct-to-store shipping.”

      Melanie added doodles to yellow legal pad as Vern droned on. Her contingency plan to hire strike replacement devised two months ago. For the past ten days, an off-site training storefront accepted applications. HR staff busy that morning telephoning those with forklift licenses.

      Drawing concentric circles, she wished Noel hadn’t bolted from living room after confirming union’s strike vote. She protected his identity, not to prevent retribution, but to gain further trust. He’d probably been leery of, or scared by, her as a needy older woman. She’d back off next time. His nerves, she recalled, reacted positive to leg touch. They could be good for each other.

      After Noel’s departure, undulating fingers stoked body core rising temperature. She gazed at Chesterton with frustrated desires radiating lower torso warmth upward. She lifted unbuttoned blouse collar away from moist skin to welcome ceiling fan breeze. If Noel disappointed, Chesterton would remain as Plan B, both employment and personal. And, the developed strategy for Chesterton surmounted the required three-month picket line duration for non-union replacement wage savings.

      * * *

      On schedule, perhaps a half hour early, Jonas arrived at the picket line to relieve Bonnie. His desire the six p.m. start of the twelve-hour night shift could be on call scrubbed, however, pulse slowed when Bonnie reported but one picket line scuffle. The three combatants, two strikers, one heckler, dispersed when approached, and she reported no visible blood or injury.

      During four drive-bys, Jonas witnessed peaceful picketing and benign company surveillance. He trusted the industrial area visual survey of no delivery truck massing predicted a peaceful night. He locked service .38 into the cruiser’s glove box and wished Bonnie a good evening. From the rear seat he retrieved a thirty-inch baton to stroll past the strikers

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