Face of Evil

CHAPTER FIVE

November 18, 2010

Roger Silbert gathered the employees in the yard, climbed up on the back of a flatbed truck, and addressed them with a bullhorn. He was thin, smelled of breath mints, and talked too fast. Today he wore a B. Barer and Sons cap to show that he was one of the guys despite his jacket, tie, and gold cufflinks.

There wasn't a man in the crowd who owned a pair of cufflinks or would buy a shirt that didn't have buttons that could do the job.

Matt stood beside Andy at the front of the crowd. Rachel stood on the periphery with the rest of the staffers from the front office building. The Barers were conspicuously absent, vacationing in Palm Springs for three weeks, as they did every winter.

Silbert began by reminding them of the bad economy, the sharp drop in new home construction nationwide, the influx of cheap lumber from other countries, and all the other ills that afflicted their industry, as if they didn't already know all about them, as if those worries weren't already keeping them up nights, or causing them to kick their dogs, or spend their weekends drunk, or put off going to their doctors for fear of what that hard bump under the skin, or that chronic pain, or that bleeding from the ass might turn out to be and what it might cost.

"We've had to take a hard look at how we do business and embrace new technologies that lower costs, conserve energy, produce greater yields, increase efficiency, and offer more operational flexibility," Silbert said.

Andy turned to Matt. “How many guys you got working on that new rig you've been playing with?"

Matt hesitated a second before answering. “Two."

"Shit," Andy said.

"So I'm pleased to announce that we'll be replacing our old, outdated equipment with the latest, cutting-edge equipment," Silbert said. “No pun intended."

He laughed, just to make sure everyone knew that his pun was intended and that he thought it was pretty witty. But half the men there had no idea what a pun was and no one was in the mood to laugh.

Andy spoke up. “When you say you're lowering costs, what you mean is that you're going to fire people."

"Unfortunately, there will be some reductions in our workforce," Silbert said. “But those who remain will have the security of working in a leaner, stronger, more efficient company that's better prepared to take on the challenges of the future."

"What you mean is that half of us, guys who have been here ten, twenty years, natural-born woodsmen, are going to be kicked onto the street to starve while you collect a bonus and move on to fire more hardworking men at another company in some other industry you don't know shit about."

"Let's not get overdramatic," Silbert said. “Nobody is going to starve. We'll be offering retraining programs, absolutely free, for all of our temporarily displaced workers."

"Training in what?" someone in the crowd called out.

"Word processing, website design, solar panel installation, computer repair," Silbert said, "and other exciting jobs in the new economy."

"I want to train for your job." Andy unbuckled his pants, let them drop, and then mooned Silbert. He bent over and peeked at Silbert from between his legs. “All I've got to do is figure out how to get my head up my ass and I'm qualified."

The crowd cheered and laughed. Silbert shook his head like a disapproving parent and lowered his bullhorn. There was nothing more to say and he knew it.

Matt smacked Andy's shoulder. “Pull up your pants. You're just making things worse."

"We're losing our jobs, Matt. Exactly how can things get any worse than that?"

"You might have kept yours before you did this."

"Yeah, right," Andy said, hiking up his pants.

Matt turned towards Silbert, who was walking back towards the main office building, and called out to him. “Are you going to fire Andy?"

Silbert stopped and faced Matt. “He's the first and only name on the list so far. He'll be out by the end of the day."

"If he goes," Matt said, "I go, too."

Andy looked at his friend in astonishment. A hush fell over the crowd.

"You're the best sawyer we've got," Silbert said. Then he moved a few steps closer to Matt and looked him in the eye. Matt could smell the wintergreen Life Savers on his breath. “But the beauty of the WM3500 is that now anybody can be the best sawyer we've got. Good luck to you both in your new endeavors."

Silbert turned his back on them and walked away. Matt looked past him to see Rachel, staring at him not with shock or anger, as he expected, but with disappointment.

"The fucking asshole," Andy muttered, snatching a long-handled cant hook from a nearby woodpile and advancing on Silbert from behind.

Matt rushed forward, tackling Andy just as he was raising the cant hook over his head. They hit the ground hard, rolling in the mud and sawdust, Matt wrestling the cant hook from Andy's hand.

Andy turned Matt on his back, straddled him, and raised his fist to deliver a hammer blow.

"Andy!" Matt called out.

His friend froze and blinked hard, like he was snapping out of a daydream. Andy looked at Matt, then in surprise at his own fist, poised to smash his friend's face in. He slowly lowered his arm and unclenched his fingers.

By now other loggers had gathered around them. They pulled Andy off of Matt, who raised his hand up to his friend for a lift to show there were no hard feelings.

But Andy just backed away until he was swallowed up in the crowd and disappeared from Matt's sight.

Another logger took Matt's hand and helped him up. Matt thanked him, slapped the dirt off his clothes, and went to clean out his locker.

The Longhorn looked like a sawmill that served drinks. The walls were decorated with blades and vintage sawing tools, and just about everybody in the place when Rachel came in was a B. Barer and Sons employee or, in the case of Andy and Matt, ex-employees.

Andy was at the center of attention, holding court at a table overflowing with mugs and pitchers, people buying him more beers than one man could possibly drink, though he was certainly going to give it his best try.

Matt sat at the bar, where he had been nursing a beer and a bowl of mixed nuts for an hour, idly watching the celebration of the bravado that had cost Andy his job.

Rachel took the stool beside Matt and helped herself to a sip of his beer.

"That was a stupid thing you did today," she said.

"You're right," Matt said. “Silbert probably deserved to have his head caved in."

"You know what I'm talking about, Matt. You didn't have to go down with Andy."

Matt shrugged. “He had every right to be angry and didn't deserve to be fired for it."

"That's not what happened. Andy is undependable, irresponsible, and an asshole. He knew he'd be the first to go, and that's why he pulled this stunt, so he could go out feeling like a hero. But you ruined it for him. He's still an asshole and you're the hero."

"I don't feel like one," Matt said.

"That's how you know you are one," she said. “Because the real heroes know being one means you've got to lose something big in the deal. What are you going to do for money now?"

"I can get by without much," Matt said. “Besides, I'm pretty good with a hammer and saw and there's always plenty of folks who need carpentry work."

"Only there's not many folks here who can afford it."

"So I'll work in trade," Matt said. “Patch a mechanic's roof in exchange for him fixing my transmission."

She studied his face now, seeing something there she hadn't seen before. “You really are okay with this."

"I take things as they come," he said.

"What did Andy Goodis ever do to deserve you?"

Before Matt could answer, Andy sauntered over, bringing two overflowing mugs of beer and two dozen of his admirers over with him.

"I love this man," Andy said, setting the mugs down hard in front of Matt and spilling beer on the counter. “Matthew Cahill is the greatest human being in the Pacific Northwest. Am I right?"

The crowd cheered and whooped and applauded, which clearly embarrassed Matt. He dismissed it all with a shrug.

"You think what he did today was great, you should have seen him in the seventh grade," Andy said, then turned to Matt. “Remember that?"

"Nobody wants to remember anything they did in junior high," Matt said. “Why doesn't somebody put a song on the jukebox?"

Matt reached into his pocket for some change, but Andy wasn't going to be so easily distracted. He turned back to regale the crowd with his story.

"The principal came into first period and accused me of breaking into his office and leaving a pile of horseshit on his desk. He hauled me out of my seat by my ear," Andy said. “But before we even got to the door, you know what Matt did? He confessed."

Rachel looked at Matt in astonishment. “You did that?"

Matt grimaced and nodded.

"He was suspended for an entire quarter, and when Matt got home, his dad took off his belt and whipped his ass raw," Andy said. “The thing is, Matt wasn't the one who left the shit on Ackerman's desk."

"Then why did you take the blame?" Rachel asked Matt.

"The principal always assumed anything bad that happened at the school was Andy's fault, whether it was or not," Matt said. “I had a clean record, so I knew they'd go easy on me, but if Andy went down for this one, they'd expel him from school for good."

"And he knew that the beating I'd get from my daddy wouldn't be nearly as gentle as the one he got," Andy said. “That's Matthew Cahill for you."

The crowd applauded again, raising their glasses and guzzling more beer in Matt's honor. One of the loggers gestured to Matt and yelled at the bartender, "His money is no good here!"

"That's good, because after today, I'm not going to have any," Matt said.

Everybody laughed and headed back to their seats, except for Andy, who lingered at the bar, eyeing Rachel with curiosity.

"Did you come down here to console us?" Andy said.

"Just because I work in the front office, that doesn't mean I don't care about what happens in the yard."

"That's real nice, but I'm plenty consoled already," Andy said. “My buddy Matt here, however, has hardly been consoled at all. I've never met a man more in need of consolation than him."

"Go away, Andy," Matt said.

Andy started to go back to his table when Rachel asked a question.

"So who really did it?"

Matt replied, "Did what?"

"Left the horse manure in the principal's office," she said.

"They never found out," Matt said.

Andy grinned. “They knew right off."

Matt looked at Andy with genuine surprise. “You really did it?"

"Of course I did," Andy said. “You knew that. Who else but me would have had the balls?"

Andy laughed and turned to share the hilarity with the other loggers, all of whom found it as wildly amusing as he did.

Matt got up quietly from his stool. When Andy turned to look at him again, Matt hammered him in the face with a right hook that might as well have been a brick.

The blow knocked the mug out of Andy's hand, splattering him with beer, and sent him tumbling back into his friends, who caught him before he fell. The mug shattered on the floor.

Matt tossed a few bucks on the counter and met the bartender's eye.

"That's for the broken mug," Matt said and walked out without giving Andy another glance. If he had, he'd have seen that the punch failed to knock the grin off Andy's face, but it did smear his front teeth with blood.

"See?" Andy said to Rachel. “He's feeling better already."

"You're an asshole," she said and followed Matt out the door.

Andy watched her go, bounced back to his feet, wiped his bloody mouth on his sleeve, and turned to his friends.

"Beer me!" he yelled, and the party continued.