The Morning the Whole Plant Stood Outside
Renata had parked behind us and walked up in her good coat with her chin high. She unfolded the stadium blanket as she came.
“You said Tuesday,” I said.
“I said Tuesday.” Her mouth shook. “I never said we’d call a lawyer. I called Pam, and Tammy, and Carolyn, while you slept. Pam says your care is covered through the month. Now sit.”
Prather had come up with a folding chair from Dot’s table. I sat, and my wife tucked the blanket around my knees as if I were 90, and I let her.
At 6:20 the front door of the plant opened and Gordon Keasey came out.
He was in the same wrinkled shirt he’d worn the day before. He took in the whole sidewalk from the top of the steps, and I saw him go gray. Then he walked to the gate and looked at Lou.
“This is an unauthorized work stoppage,” he said. His voice was not steady. “Everyone here is subject to discipline under the agreement.”
“Is that so, Gordon?” Lou said mildly. “Anybody here punch in? No? Then nobody’s on the company’s time. We’re standing on a public sidewalk, talking to our brothers. I’d say this is a meeting.” He patted the binder. “And when you’re done checking the clock, you can read page 41. Your own handbook says leave for an organ donor’s surgery and recovery is not counted against attendance. You wrote that. You just didn’t read it.”
There was a low sound in the crowd, not quite a laugh.
Keasey opened his mouth. Nothing came out. Behind him Dot Mayfield walked up with a paper cup, set it in his hand, and said, “It’s just coffee, Gordon. You look like you need it.”
He took it. And then, because he was a man with a conscience he had been trying all weekend to put to sleep, he looked toward the Buick.
Sal had not said a word. Marge saw Keasey look, and she sighed, and she opened his door. He came across the pavement with a hand on her arm, and the whole sidewalk went quiet, the way a congregation does when the pastor walks to the pulpit.
He pulled the mask down under his chin, which Marge allowed for exactly as long as it took.
“Mr. Keasey,” he said. In the six years you have run this floor, he had never called him anything else. “You know who I am.”
“Sal.” Keasey swallowed. “I know.”
“This one came with a man attached.” He tapped his own belly, low on the right. “Eight weeks ago he let them cut him open for me, and your company wrote it down as a no-show. Read that file again, Mr. Keasey.”
Marge pulled the mask back up. She walked him to the Buick, set him in the front seat with the heater on high and the thermos in his hands, and shut the door. Nobody on that sidewalk had ever seen Sal Ferro outranked.
Keasey stood there. Nobody helped him. The coffee shook in his cup, and I watched his face change.
“I got a call Friday from Dallas,” he said finally. He wasn’t talking to the Buick anymore. He was talking to all of us. “The audit sheet showed a man with no approved leave, and I was told to take care of it before Monday. I could have called the leave service. I could have called Dwayne at home.”
“Why didn’t you?” a man called from the crowd.