BRENT WAS IN SHIRTSLEEVES, HIS SUIT JACKET STREWN ACROSS THEJeep’s passenger seat. The lack of air-conditioning under the ragtop made the drive steamy, so he’d slipped the coat off at the first stop sign.
The Jeep had been his father’s mill car. Everybody owned one, since the daily dose of caustic precipitants from the smokestacks destroyed a paint finish. To save the trouble of having to wash something of value every day, people either carpooled, walked, rode a bicycle, or bought an old clunker that a few blemishes wouldn’t hurt. The Jeep’s corroded maroon paint and faded roof still bore the scars from years of daily exposure. It was strange even driving it. But his mother had insisted, saying it was doing nobody any good rusting away in the garage.
Southern Republic Pulp and Paper Company’s only mill occupied a picturesque bend on the Savannah River three miles east of Concord, with South Carolina in view on the opposite bank. The tract once supported nothing but stubborn palmetto bushes and crabby sand pines, a haven for deerflies and gnats. Now only helter-skeltered patches of that remained, the rest a sea of concrete and asphalt.
His father used to say paper mills needed four things to survive. Tons of pulpwood, lots of energy, around-the-clock manpower, andclean flowing water. Brent’s teenage indoctrination had included several tours of the hot, filthy, calamitous place. He’d always thought it akin to a living entity, one that produced paper by the hour and paychecks once every two weeks.
Three brick buildings the size of football fields stood ten stories tall, one for each paper-making machine. Steel and masonry tanks of varied shapes and sizes dotted the spaces in between. Highways of pipe, wire, and tubing connected it all, everything iced with a coat of white lime, the thickness depending on height and location.
Smokestacks spewed a scalding combination of steam and precipitant. A steady procession of trucks trekked in and out throughout the day hauling tons of cut pine, all methodically sorted and stacked in towering mounds. Off to one side rose a mountain of chipped bark. Farther on sprawled acres of black ponds, places where water borrowed from the Savannah rested until, according to EPA standards, it rid itself of enough impurities that had invaded during the process of converting pulp into paper. Another legion of trucks moved eighteen hours a day to and from the ponds, carting the viscous sludge away for disposal so more water could drain, yielding more sludge.
The company’s administrative buildings rose inside the plant gates but outside the heavy production areas. They comprised four shoeboxes, three stories each, built at varying times. The only noticeable difference was that the air-conditioning compressors for the two built in the 1960s were bolted to flat roofs, while the two from the 1980s were cooled by compressors on the ground. Each rectangle was a tasteful combination of brick, stone, and glass, white lime coating the exposed surfaces. Brent had learned that, thanks to a corporate restructuring four years ago, the buildings now housed not only the mill’s but Southern Republic’s entire accounting, payroll, industrial relations, computer control, human resources, land management, forestry, building products, and engineering departments, along with the chief executive officer, two vice presidents, the comptroller, and the office of general counsel.
He followed the morning procession of cars off the parkway and down the tree-lined main entrance. Ahead, white smoke fumed into the sunny morning, the roar of machinery clear more than half a mile away. He passed the same sign that had been there for years.SOUTHERN REPUBLIC PULP AND PAPER COMPANY—BUILDING CONCORD’S FUTURE—6,345 MAN-HOURS SO FAR THIS YEAR WITHOUT AN ACCIDENT.
He shook his head.
Brent Walker. Company man.
What had he gotten himself into?
7:45A.M.
HANK HEARD THE FRONT DOOR OPEN.
He sat at the kitchen table finishing off one of his monstrous bowls of cereal. Heap in half a box of cornflakes, nuts, raisins, sliced bananas, whatever berry was in season, and two percent milk, and the result was a meal easy to fix, eat, and clean up.
Ashley paraded into the kitchen.
His daughter was a carbon copy of her mother, and equally impetuous with an alley cat nerve and quick mind. It was the only thing about her he wished were different, as he did not like reminders of Loretta. Eight years ago she’d left him for another man, leaving only a note lying on the same table he sat at now.
I found someone else, so I’m leaving. Divorce me and be done with it. I want nothing but my clothes, which I’ve taken. I don’t want us to fight and I don’t want us to be angry, though I suspect you will hate me. Good luck with your life and be happy. If it matters at all, I will be. Finally.
It took a long time for him to deal with that rejection.
And for the most part he had.
But reminders of it were not appreciated.
Marlene had taken him back to her place last night so he could bestow upon her a proper reward, and he’d done good. He’d stayedout a little too late, though. He wasn’t twenty-five anymore. He actually needed sleep. But he was in a good mood. Thanks to Marlene, on all counts.
His daughter looked upbeat too. She used her size, not much over a hundred pounds, to disarm people unaccustomed to her brashness. But growing up in Concord as the mayor’s daughter had come with advantages that she’d learned to maximize. From the refrigerator she found orange juice and poured herself a glass. Every morning, after dropping Lori Anne at school, she stopped by on the way to work at the post office. He knew, though, today’s visit was going to be different.
She sat at the table. “Okay. How is Brent?”
“Other than wanting to whip Clarence Silva’s butt, he seemed fine.”
“Silva needs his butt whipped. But that’s it? Fine? You know I hate that word. You were in politics twenty years. I heard you give a zillion speeches. And all you can muster for me isfine?”
“What do you want me to say? Brent is ready to get married and you two ought to be pickin’ out the china pattern?”
“You know what I mean.”
“He’s only been back one day. Give it time, honey. This is not going to be easy. There are a lot of things to consider.”
“You don’t think I know? Paula has been dead and buried a long time, yet she’s still in the way.”
“I hope to hell you don’t talk like that around other people.”
