A Place at the Table
17 Hostage
Liam
I OPENED MY CAR DOOR before Erich got a chance to get out and open it for me. It was bad enough having a driver, but I didn’t want people to think I was a rich kid who got waited on all the time. I looked around and saw Meredith up the street, so I started walking to meet her.
Everything happened fast after that. Some guys in front of the shoe factory grabbed her and dragged her off the street. I took off running and was in front of the factory in less than a minute. I started through the picket line where she’d been taken. Hands grabbed me from every side.
“Whoa, boyo. Nobody crosses the picket line.”
“I need to follow the woman you just snatched off the street,” I said. “Right now.”
“Who snatched a woman off the street?” the big guy said. “You must be kidding. Now go off and play with your college friends.”
“And what do you think will happen if you shove me back toward the bar, say, and I go straight to a phone to call the police?” I growled. I wasn’t backing down until I had Meredith back.
“They’d send a car around eventually and we’d tell them the same thing we just told you. What woman?”
“Look at me.” The man stepped back and looked at me. I wasn’t entirely happy with the way I looked. The staff had pressed my jeans with a neat crease down the front. I wore a white polo shirt and had a sweater over my shoulders, tied at my neck. “Now, look at yourself and your fellows here. Who do you think the police will believe? Do you really think I’m just another college kid?”
“Look now, you won’t be telling the cops nothing.” They grabbed me and a painful blow landed across my shoulders. My shirt was pulled out of my jeans and I lost the sweater.
“Listen! Do you really want to do this out here in public? Everyone will see you beating a college kid. Even if the police don’t believe the story of the girl, they’ll believe all those people watching you beat me.” The strikers looked out toward the street. Two couples were standing next to Erich and half a dozen others were heading our direction from the bar. It could get very messy, very quickly. “Would you just take me to wherever you took her? Then we can have a nice civilized conversation. There’s no reason to bully.” I turned toward the people who were gathered and looked directly at Erich. “You won’t try anything with these guys if I go willingly with them to where they took the young woman, will you?”
Erich clenched his fists but nodded his head. No doubt he’d called the others as he tried to catch me. The car was sitting beside him, still running. But the guy was seventy years old and I didn’t want him trying to be a bodyguard. I’m a lot more solid than my size would make me appear.
“Take him to see Peters, then.” The main speaker pointed to two guys who took me by the arms and marched me away as the rest of the strikers closed the gap behind us.
An argument was in progress and I could see Meredith being held in much the same way I was.
“Why the hell did you do this?”
“You said we need some leverage to bring them to the table. She’s leverage. We have a hostage and they’ll bargain or else.”
“Or else what?” The leader turned and saw me. “Another? What are you guys thinking? Someone get out there and make sure there are no more!”
“Can I ask you something, mister?”
“Ha! Mister? I’m an unemployed shoe laster. Something you will never need to get your fingers dirty at.” The fellow took a deep breath and let it out. “What’s your question?”
“Was the purpose of kidnapping a woman off the street to have leverage to get the company to the bargaining table?”
“Yeah. It was a stupid move but we don’t have any more options.”
“Look at her. She won’t work.”
“What? Why?”
“She’s way too pretty. Imagine yourself sitting at home watching the news and they put her picture up next to a picture of the picket line out there. Is she going to get you sympathy? I don’t think so. People would be clamoring for the police to get in here and rescue her. None of us really want that. Someone would get hurt.”
“I said this was a bad idea. Guys…”
“Not necessarily a bad idea, just poorly executed.”
“What the… What are you talking about?”
“Well, think about those same people watching the news and they see a privileged boy who will never have to work a day in his life being held by desperate workers. Who do you think would have their sympathy then?”
“You mean you. Why would people know or care about you? Being pretty seems like a better strategy.”
“I am William Thomas Cyning, heir to Regina Cyning of Buxton House.”
“Oh shit!”
“I am volunteering to be your hostage and to keep the police from acting irresponsibly if you will let this young woman go.”
“How would that help?”
“Miss, when you are released, please call Buxton House and ask for Erich Heinz. Tell him what you saw and ask to speak to Regina. Please deliver this message: I am asking the police not to be involved. We simply need the owners or managers of Covington Shoe Company to come to the bargaining table in earnest. I will remain with these people until they do. Will you do that?”
“Yes, L… Yes, sir. I will take that message.” I caught her nearly calling me by name but she realized in time. It would be better if they didn’t think we knew each other.
“There. You have my word. You have my body as your bond. Don’t you think that’s enough to bring the company to the table?”
“Christ. It just might. The bosses would all be ready to do whatever was necessary to help a Cyning. And you, girl? What are you?”
“I am just a secretary, sir.”
“Will they listen to her?” the man asked me.
“Yes. If she carries out my instructions, Regina Cyning will see to it that the police do not interfere,” I said. I hoped that was as clear as I could make it to Meredith that I wanted to be here.
The leader stood up straighter and looked at the closest circle of workers. “You two! Let go of the young woman’s arms. Act like gentlemen and escort her out of the grounds so she can continue her evening. You will carry the message?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good.” He waved at his men and they escorted Meredith from the circle as she kept looking back at me. “Now, you. Sit down here. Let him go. We have the word of a Cyning that he will be our hostage. You don’t have to keep his arms pinned.” We sat on rickety folding chairs facing each other. “Sorry about the dust-up out there. We’ve no intention of hurting you. I don’t know whose bright idea this was but it all rose from needing leverage to bring them to the table. Our withheld labor doesn’t seem to matter. They won’t even discuss our demands.”
“Please. May I know your name?” I asked.
“Randy Peters. I sent the letter to the management with our demands, so they fired me. When I was cleaning out my locker, all these people followed me. I never wanted to lead a strike.”
“Yet it appears you are a respected leader. During our time together, call me Liam. May I call you Randy?”
“You’re an okay guy, Liam. Not at all what we’ve always been told our betters are.” He nodded.
“You’ve been told wrong. No class is better than another.”
“Ha! That might be how you see it from the top, but any worker will tell you different.”
“Then we need to figure out how to change that perception. May I see the letter that lists your demands?” I waited while Randy retrieved a copy of the letter from a card table.
“Here you go. I can explain anything if you don’t understand it. We’re not college-educated, you know.” I scanned the brief letter. It was neatly typed. It used a few unusual terms but I could find nothing offensive.
“Okay. I see. This is serious stuff. You did a nice job of typing it up.”
“My wife. We have a typewriter so she can do piece-work as a typist.”
“She should be highly prized. Let’s go through the list of… ah… your ‘requisitions’ as you put it, and make sure I understand them? This first one. Twenty-five cents an hour increase in pay across the board.”
“We only got a nickel an hour increase at Christmas last year and they told us nothing was coming this year. A nickel an hour! What are we going to do with the extra two bucks a week?” One of the burly men who had held Meredith was standing close and was happy to offer his opinion.
“Mmm. I see. What’ll you do with an extra ten bucks a week?”
“Ten dollars will put a meal on the table that we might have skipped to feed our children,” Randy said. I looked sadly at the man as I began to understand their situation.
“I see. You ask for five days of paid medical absence each year?”
“Yes, sir. A lot of people can’t afford to miss work, even if they’re sick. So, they use their week of vacation if they’re sick. We think we shouldn’t go without pay another week if the illness is severe.”
“You mean people come to work when they are sick?” I asked.
“Molly Amstel,” the burly man next to us answered. Randy nodded.
“Molly was a fine worker. She got sick last year. Doctor told her she needed time to recover. After her vacation ran out, she was right back at her cutting machine. She died three weeks later and left three children behind with no one to care for them. She worked herself to death.”
“What happened to her children?”
“All adopted but not all in the same family. Who can afford to add three mouths at once? But they’re in the same school so they see each other every day.”
I bit my lip. I couldn’t believe people were pushed into these conditions. Oh, I knew it intellectually, but these men and women were the face of the Dexter class and were obviously being misused. I was on the verge of blurting out my anger. But that wouldn’t help. I needed cold rational arguments. I continued down the list, discussing each point with Randy. A few points seemed frivolous at first. New chairs and tables for the breakroom? I discovered the rickety chair I sat on and which had twice threatened to collapse under my weight had come from the breakroom. New shoes? Randy explained that the workers couldn’t afford to buy the product they made, so they bought a competitor’s shoes for thirty percent less than Covington Shoes.
I was exhausted and glanced at my watch. We’d been talking for hours and it was past midnight.
“I’m afraid I can’t deal with any more, my friend. Can we get some sleep and start on this again in the morning? I’d like to help you.” I stretched and yawned, nearly toppling the chair again.
“Help us? More than by bringing them to the table?”
“Have you ever been in a bargaining room, Randy?”
“No. We’ve never bargained before.”
“Then let me help. This is what I’ve been educated and trained for. Where do we sleep?” I looked around and saw a few people lying on the ground around fires in old oil drums.
“Uh… Sorry. There are six thousand of us on strike. The street frontage is only three hundred yards on this street and another four hundred around the corner plus the parking lot in back. That means we only have three to five hundred people on the picket line at once and work in shifts. There’s no room for any more than that. So, most are home in their beds at least a couple of days between their shifts.”
“This takes a lot of organizing. Who worked out the details?”
“My wife and me, mostly. She’s behind us and a great encouragement to me. Some of the folks here don’t have that kind of support at home. Husbands or wives are complaining to their mates to go back to work,” Randy said.
“I’ll stretch out over there if I may.”
“If you’re sleeping on the ground, so am I,” Randy declared hotly.
“That’s noble of you, Randy. Won’t your wife want you at home?”
“Now that we have a hostage, I’m not letting you out of my sight. No offense. It’s the only way I can make sure no one here messes things up.”
“Sir? Here’s your sweater. Sorry you… um… lost it earlier.”
I looked up at the speaker, one of my original escorts.
“Let us forget the past, my friend. Thank you.”
I woke up stiff and cold. Someone had tossed a jacket over me during the night and I didn’t know whom to thank for it. As late as Randy and I had talked the night before, I was still up before sunrise. I stretched and ran in place for nearly an hour. I obviously hadn’t thought things through very well. I was smelly and damp and had no place to shower. Well, with luck everyone else would smell just as bad. Randy paused by the fire drum to warm himself as everyone else was waking up.
“Why do you do that?” he asked.
“I’m afraid my real life is spent sitting at a desk and studying. I need to exercise in order to keep from bloating like a whale.” My stomach growled and I realized a second problem. I was hungry and had no cook to cater to me. It seemed Randy had the same idea. He went to the card table and pulled out his lunchbox.
“Sally, my wife, brought a lunch box for us this morning. Let’s eat.” He opened the box between us and pulled out a sandwich. He broke it in half and gave part to me. His wife had obviously not brought him enough to share but I took it gratefully.
“What is this?” One big bite of the coarse bread and meat spread was a new—and not entirely unpleasant—experience.
“Liverwurst. Doesn’t take much to fuel a man for a day’s work. And don’t worry, she packed us another one for lunch.”
“Randy, I’ve been thinking about your demands. They don’t sound unrealistic to me but I need to find out what the company can afford and what it can’t. For example, it would do no good to increase the company’s expenses by ten percent if it meant ten percent of the workforce would be laid off.”
“Do you think that’s a possibility? The guys would never put up with that! To think a better life for us meant one out of ten of our coworkers were cut off? Impossible!”
“That’s the point. I don’t know if it’s impossible or not. I need the details of the company’s annual report. Can you get one?”
“I don’t even know what it is. How would I know if I could get one?”
“It’s a report the company sends to shareholders each year.”
“I still don’t know where I’d get one. None of us own stock.” I filed that bit of information in the back of my mind.
“I think I know where I could get one but I would need to use a phone. Is there a payphone nearby?” I looked back at the factory as Randy shook his head.
“Closest, I suppose, is in the Rat Cellar over there. The owner of that bar… Well, he should have been a Promoter instead of a Cognoscente. He’s been good to us, though. He brings the leftovers from the night before to us. He should be here soon. I’ll ask if we can get you to a phone.”
“I’ll need to be closely escorted by workers. Maybe a dozen of them. It mustn’t look like I’m wandering around on my own.”
“Ah. Clever. I’ll send out a call. We’ll stretch the picket line all the way to his door.”
Before too long, arrangements had been made through messages sent back and forth. Randy and I walked behind a picket line that stretched to the bar door. I was led to a pay phone and made my call.
“Liam! What’s your status, son? I could get the police down there in an hour but your grandmother has forbidden it.” My father was as anxious as I imagined he’d be.
“I’m well and am being treated as well as anyone on the picket line. I knew you would be concerned, Father, so I insisted they let me make a call to you to let you know I’m okay.”
“It was a foolish thing to offer yourself in trade for Meredith. They might have kept you both and then where would we be?”
“I understand I took a risk, but I had little time to think of an alternate solution. They’re pretty decent folk. The whole hostage thing was a spur of the moment act. They’re getting desperate to get the company to the bargaining table. As foolish as it sounds, they thought having a hostage would hurry the company to negotiate. Of course, once they were committed, they couldn’t really back down. I’m trying to de-escalate things.” Father didn’t need to know exactly how I was working on de-escalation. I was working on behalf of the employees.
“They should just all go back to work and accept what the company offered in the first place.”
“Do you know what that is, Father? I’ve read the list of demands. I think a few things are unreasonable and I might be able to talk them down, except…”
“Except what, Liam. You have a plan. I can hear it in your voice.”
“I really need to know where the company stands on this. That’s the only way I’ll be able to show them what’s unreasonable. No one here is a stockholder, so no one has an annual report. You hold stock in Covington Shoes, don’t you? Could you get me a copy of the annual report so I can show them exactly where their reasoning is wrong? Then when the company comes to the bargaining table, it will be much easier to negotiate.” I was walking a thin line here. I didn’t want to tip my father off too soon.
“What makes you think the company will come to the table? Fergie is convinced another week without a paycheck will put an end to the strike.”
“Fergie?” I asked.
“Yes. You need to pay more attention to the business, Liam. Fergie is the CEO and majority shareholder in Covington Shoes.”
“Well, holding me as a hostage certainly won’t move him to the table. But…” I thought fast. What would concern Fergie more than having his employees on strike? “I haven’t confirmed this but no one here looks like he or she has missed a meal. They’ve been on strike for three and a half weeks. I’d have thought they’d be more frayed by this time but they’re in good spirits. You don’t suppose someone—no one I know, but Covington does have some competitors who aren’t entirely ethical—what if someone were subsidizing the strike in order to drive Covington into a loss position? I’d hate to see that, wouldn’t you?”
“There are people like that. Do you think they’re being subsidized?” Father asked. I could hear the worry in his voice. When dealing with a Promoter, nothing works like competition.
“Can’t say for sure. I’ll keep digging for information. Can you get me the report?”
“I’ll send it with Erich. I need to talk to Fergie. It’s good that you got on the inside so cleverly, son. You’ll be wasted if you don’t decide to come into our family business. You should take more interest in it.”
“I’m only eighteen. Surely, nothing is set in stone yet.”
“Right. Well, anything else you need?”
“I should speak to Meredith. I’m sure she’s furious. Oh. And Grandmother.”
“You’re in luck. They’re together. I’ll patch you through to Mother’s suite. Take care of yourself, Liam. I’m proud of you.”
“Thank you, Father.”
“Liam! You idiot! They might have hurt you!” Meredith screamed.
“Calmly, dear.” Grandmother was obviously right next to her.
“Please forgive me, madam. And you, too, Liam. I’ve been desperately anxious about you and your grandmother has been comforting me. I should be doing my job, not moaning. What is it you need next, Liam? What can I get for you?” She was struggling to remain calm. I needed to reassure her.
“When you are concerned for my health and well-being, there is nothing to be forgiven. I know you are distressed. How did it go last night?”
“Erich met me outside the picket lines and drove me straight here. In about five minutes, the house was on full alert. I don’t think any of the strikers thought to notify anyone that you were being held hostage. Your father immediately called Mr. Ferguson to tell him you were being held. Ferguson wanted to send in the army or something to liberate you but by that time, your grandmother had contacted the police and other locals to inform them of the situation and that under no circumstances were they to attack or approach the pickets.”
“Excellent! Grandmother, are you there as well?”
“I am.”
“Do you think the police will continue non-interference? I don’t want anything to set off violence.”
“In this matter, my voice will prevail. The next time you do something like this, though, you will have to deal with them yourself.”
“I hope never to do this again.”
“We’ll see. You’re a Leader after all.”
“I’ve asked Father to send an annual report with Erich. Could you see that he also brings my ski jacket and knit hat? My jeans and shirt are fine, but it gets cold here at night.”
“Erich is with us and is nodding his head.”
“Can you get us some appropriate news coverage? I’m certain Mr. Ferguson has kept this quiet as I’ve seen no reporters near the picket line. And I don’t remember seeing more than a mention in the newspapers the past few weeks. I need some allies. I think I can resolve this if the company will come to the bargaining table.”
“There is a reporter who wants a personal interview with me. I think she will treat it favorably. Don’t abuse the favor.”
“Yes, Grandmother.”
“Is there anything else, Liam? Anything I can do?” Meredith pled with me.
“Mmm. I don’t suppose you could get a hundred pizzas delivered to the picket line, could you? It would need to come from someone else, not us. We need someone who could be confused as a competitor.”
“Ah! I think I know just the person.”
“Who?”
“It happens there is another Leader attending the University”
“Really?”
“Don’t be too surprised. That’s an excellent idea, Meredith.” I could just see Grandmother pacing up and down. “If you need additional credentials, I will provide them.”
“Thank you, madam. Hang in there, Liam. We are all working for you.”
“Grandmother. Meredith. The workers here have just cause. I need to find a way for Mr. Ferguson win at the same time. It can’t simply be that I’m not harmed.”
“Exactly what you have been taught, Liam. This will determine if you are truly a Leader. Carry on.”
“I love you, Liam.”
“And I love you, Meredith. We have work to do.”
I hung up and stood there for a moment in a daze until Randy suggested we get back to the factory. Meredith had just told me she loved me! Me! And I automatically responded with my love to her. It was insane. We were in love!
I realized Grandmother was in the room when we declared it. Oh my!
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