The Shirts on the Conference Table

“I know what corporate asked. I wrote the memo. I wrote ‘shrink.’ Scrap, theft, material waste. I didn’t write ‘garments,’ and I didn’t write ‘final checks.’ How many replacement requests have you had since you took over this plant?”

Neil was quiet. “Nineteen. I denied them.”

“And you charged Larry Haskins $200 on his way out the door.”

“That’s the policy. Every one of them signed for it.”

“It’s the policy to charge for what’s unreturned. It’s the same policy that says the company replaces it when it wears out.” Rodney picked up Hector’s shirt and read the card. “Did you read page 14, Neil, or just the part you needed?”

“I read all of it. The part I needed is enforceable.”

“Then explain to me how a man returns a shirt the company wouldn’t replace.”

Neil opened his mouth and nothing came. It was the first time I had seen him without an answer.

I sat at the end of the table with my hands in my lap. I wanted to say something. Ross had told me not to, and now I understood why. The shirts were saying it, all thirty-two. A woman at the end of the table would only have turned it into a quarrel.

Neil did not come around. He walked the length of the table with his arms folded, stiffly, reading cards the way you read a bill you mean to dispute. He stopped in front of the shirt with the elbows. I saw his lips move on the last line.

Ask Mrs. Weller about the elbows.

“Mrs. Weller.” He did not look at me. He looked at the shirt. “Did you do these?”

“Eleven times in one year,” I said. “I counted.”

“Why?”

“Because Ross wouldn’t buy a new one himself, and the plant wouldn’t issue one. And because he said a work shirt ought to look like work.”

Neil put a finger on the duck cloth and took it away again. He was a long time answering.

“The refunds will go out this week,” he said at last, to the shirt. “Haskins and the Boyd kid first. I’ll make the calls myself.” His voice was flat and careful, a man reading from a page he did not like. “That’s what I can do today.”

“That is what you can do today,” Rodney said. “It is not all of it.”

Rodney wrote a figure on his yellow legal pad: 31 people, two full sets of shirts and pants each, freight, new name patches. $6,480. He tore off the page and handed it to Neil. “That comes out of your plant’s operating budget this quarter. Not corporate. Yours. Your bonus this quarter is gone, and a written notice goes in your file. The separation charge is rescinded today, retroactive to the day you took over. Everyone who was charged gets a refund and a letter. And Ross Weller gets his $300 back, with an apology from the plant in writing, signed by both of us.”

“Both of us,” Neil said.

“Both of us. One more thing. Charlene tells me there was supposed to be a cake on Friday.”