CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Reno knew he would be back, and once Sal confirmed the ownership of that factory, he was back the very next morning. But this time, he took Dom with him too. And this time, as soon as they walked in and down the short hall that led into the plant, those same two managers were hurrying to kick them right back out.
“I thought you learned your lesson yesterday boy,” the manager yelled at Reno.
Dom was flabbergasted to think that this clown would speak to his father so disrespectfully. “Check you out,” he said, giving him a side-eyed look.
But the manager was singularly focused. He won round one yesterday, in front of all the same workers. He was emboldened today. “Get the hell out of my plant and get the hell out now!” he said loudly as all of his workers looked on.
But Reno had the calmness of a man who knew where he stood. “You want me to get out of your plant?” Reno asked him. “Sure about that?”
“Am I sure about it? What kind of a fool question is that? Yes, I’m sure about it.”
“You sure this is your plant?”
“Yeah I’m sure. What’s wrong with you? You deaf? Now get the hell away from here. Scram,” he said as if Reno was a dog, and then he pushed to help him along, causing Reno to nearly stumble.
But before a shocked Dommi could make a first step toward that idiot manager, and before that manager could take another breath, Reno angrily grabbed him, jacked him up by his stained shirt collar, and slammed him against one of the machines so hard that audible gasps filled the room. Every worker in that building went still. They’d never seen anything like it.
The assistant manager reached for Reno, to help his boss, but Dom grabbed him and threw him to the floor. “You don’t want none of that,” he warned him. The assistant, seeing that look in Dom’s eyes, stayed down.
“You listen to me, you cockroach, and you listen good,” Reno said to that now-agonized manager, and he said it with clenched teeth as if he was trying to control himself. “Your ass don’t own a fucking thing in this town. If anybody’s getting out it’s you. But first you’re gonna answer my questions. You hear me? And you know why you’re gonna answer my questions? Because you don’t wanna fuck with me. I’m the last motherfucker on this planet you wanna fuck with. Do we understand each other, boss man?”
Dom smiled when Reno referred to the manager that way. But the manager was in severe pain. He realized as soon as his back slammed against that machine that he had grossly underestimated his opponent. “Yes, I understand,” he said.
The workers looked at each other. The plant manager was a nasty so-and-so to each and every one of them. But he was cowering so easily to the new guy in town? It was a sight to behold.
“Who owns this joint?” Reno asked the manager.
“Arthur Koshay owns it. He’s the one that hired me. That’s all I know, Mister. That’s all I know.”
Reno stared at him a moment longer, then released him. The manager stood up away from that machine, and tried to straighten his shirt, but it was obvious his pride had left the building.
“Arthur Koshay didn’t own shit around here,” Reno made clear. “Not this factory and not the diner. I own them both.”
Another gasp filled the room when Reno said those words. They knew he owned the diner. They had no idea he owned the plant too.
But Reno was still staring at the manager. “Why did he hire you? What makes you so special that you can waltz up in here and run this factory better than the people in this town can run it?”
“Ain’t no reason!” one of the workers yelled out.
Reno and Dom looked at the workers. “Who said that?” Reno asked.
A tall, lean, black man who appeared to be in his forties stepped out into the aisle. “I said it,” he said. “He and that boy on the floor down there don’t know half of what we know about this plant. They didn’t even know how to turn on a machine when they got here. If we don’t tell’em what to do every day God send, they wouldn’t know their heads from their tails.”
A few amens were heard throughout the room.
“They treat us like dogs,” Samuel continued. “Don’t let us take our lunch breaks half the time. And when the collectors come, them two right there get a cut of the fees too.”
Reno knew what he was talking about, but he wanted to hear the worker’s take on it. “What fees?” he asked him.
“They say we have to give up half our pay to cover the costs of running the factory or it’ll shut down and we won’t have no jobs at all. That’s what they tell us,” he added with a suspicious look on his face.
“Half of your pay hun?”
“Yes sur. That’s what they tell us.”
“What’s your name?” Dom asked the worker.
“Samuel Jamison, sur.”
“How long you been here, Mr. Jamison?”
“Since it opened nearly five years ago. Another man was the owner then. We didn’t never see him around, but it was run right then. Locals ran it. I was the manager. But then Mr. Koshay showed up one day and said he owned it now. He took over and hired the two of them. And they were just awful people. They started what I’ll say is stealing our money, and they never did nothing to make the plant better. It ain’t never been the same since they got here.”
Reno took notice of Samuel. He remembered that Otis had mentioned that name too. “You know how to run this joint?”
“Me and most everybody in here, yes sur.”
“Then you’re the new manager,” Reno said.
Samuel and every worker in there were shocked. “Me sur?”
“Yes you. Koshay and his thugs were illegitimate. They didn’t just steal your wages, because you were right to call it a theft, but they also stole this factory. I’m stealing it back,” Reno said to a sudden outburst of applause.
Then Reno looked at the assistant manager. “Get your ass up,” he said to him, and the workers laughed.
The assistant stood up next to his boss.
“Where do you live?” Reno asked them.
“Tutwiler,” said the manager.
“Own your own home there? Your own car? Doing well for yourselves?”
“I would say so.”
“Well these people aren’t doing well at all thanks to you and your so-called owner. They work twelve-hour shifts and pull down what? A couple hundred dollars a week?”
“Not even that much,” said Samuel.
“If that much,” Reno agreed. “Effective immediately,” he said to the managers, “you two are officially fired.”
The workers, shocked, began glancing at each other.
“I would have you arrested, too,” Reno continued, “because your asses did commit highway robbery on these people, but that sheriff in town ain’t worth a shit either. So this is what’s gonna happen,” he said as he looked at Samuel. “How many people work at this factory, Mr. Jamison?”
“It’s two shifts, sur. A total of one hundred and forty-eight people.”
“Over half the town,” said Dom.
“Yes sur,” said Samuel, nodding. “Over half the town.”
Reno looked at the managers. “You will each pay restitution of a thousand bucks to each one of these workers.”
The workers, now stunned, looked at each other and then quickly looked back at Reno. Was he for real?
“That means,” Reno continued, “that each one of you will bring to this factory one hundred and forty-eight thousand dollars in the form of a money order or cashier’s check. If you have to hock your nice houses and nice cars to do it, you’d better get it done. And you’d better get it done within the next two months or some friends of mine, who aren’t as kind as I am, will pay your asses a visit.” Reno looked at them hard. “You don’t want that visit,” he warned.
Then Reno’s expression turned vicious. “Now get off of this property and get off now. Scram!” he yelled the way the manager had yelled at him, causing the workers to cheer, and then he pushed the manager along, the same way the manager had pushed him.
But both managers foolishly thought they could pull a Reno on Reno. Because as soon as he pushed the manager along, both managers turned around and swung on him. Reno ducked the manager’s punch and Dom grabbed the fist of the assistant manager before he could land a blow. Then Reno punched both managers. Both men hit the floor hard.
But both of them jumped right back up ready to fight. It was as if that restitution requirement had awakened the devil in them, because they were hellbent on getting the last word.
Although they started it, Reno and Dom were determined to finish it. Once and for all. They beat the crap out of both men, drawing blood within seconds of their beatdown, and then they began stomping on them to the cheers of every one of those workers in that plant. None of those church going, Christian workers condoned violence of any kind, but all of those workers had dreamed of doing the same thing to those heartless managers from the first day they showed up. Reno and Dom were doing the dirty work for them. They loved every second of it.
By now, the managers were begging the Gabrinis to stop. They’d do anything. Just stop the beat down.
Dom stopped, but Reno was in the zone and Dom had to force him away from the two men. “Now get out of here,” Dom said, still holding his father back. “And remember,” he added as the two now-bloodied managers got back on their feet, “you don’t want that visit.”
The two men looked at Dom, and then they looked at Reno, and it was as if they finally realized that they weren’t just dealing with two regular guys, but two mafia men. Two mobster-type people. The kind that buried folks in cement.
“We’ll pay the restitution,” the manager said. “You don’t have to worry about that.” Then he looked at Reno one more time, realized again what a fool he’d been for defying him, and then he ran out of that plant, with his assistant running right behind him. The workers applauded with a raucous applause.
Reno looked at Samuel. “Does everybody make the same amount?”
“Yes sur.”
“Minimum wage?”
Samuel nodded. “Yes sur. But that’s before we had to give them a cut. We bring home around a hundred and forty dollars a week for our twelve-hour workdays.”
Dom looked at his father. “That’s a crying shame,” he said.
“From this day forward,” Reno announced to the entire room, “every one of you will make twenty dollars an hour for every hour you work, with an hour lunch break every day. So instead of earning a hundred and forty bucks a week, you will earn that same amount every day.”
The room erupted.
“And,” Reno added, but the cheers were too loud. Dom had to hold up his hand for them to quiet down.
“And,” Reno said, “every one of you will have an ownership interest in this factory. From this day forward,” he said.
But silence filled the room. They all looked to Samuel. Samuel was staring at Reno. “A ownership interest? What that mean, sur?”
Dom was touched by how sweet and innocent those people truly were. They needed protection from vultures like Koshay and his managers who could show up at any time in the future and change everything. As he stood there, he wondered, to his own shock, if he could be that protection.
Reno was touched too. There really were good, honest, hardworking people still in this world. “What it means is that when we make our products and ship them out, whatever profits are made will be split between every one of you. At the end of the year, when all is tallied up, the more profits we make, the more money you earn. And there will no longer be any factory fees coming out of your paychecks. That’s what it means.”
“But we won’t get no weekly wages, sur?” asked Samuel.
Reno frowned. “Why would you think?” Then Reno realized why they would think he’d rip them off too. They’d been ripped off for years. “Yes, you will get your twenty dollars an hour wages in addition to the dividends you will get as part owner of the factory. You will get your wages every week. You will get the dividends at the end of the year. Just before Christmas. And another thing,” he added, “now that you’ll be making a decent salary, it’ll open the door for people from bigger towns to flood in looking to take your jobs. That ain’t happening. That’s why I’m giving you an ownership stake. This factory will be for the current citizens of Washwater, Mississippi, and for nobody else. You will past down your ownership to your children and children’s children. This factory will be a family business for a family town.”
When Reno said those words, the room erupted in applause and cheers and hugs and cries and disbelief. Finally a living wage , their faces seemed to say. Finally !
Dom looked at his father as the workers could not stop cheering and hugging as if burdens were being lifted from every one of them. His father did this sort of thing all the time with his own thousands of workers. He always knew his father was that kind of a good man. But he realized just how good he truly was in that moment, because Dom saw how good it felt to be good to people.
He could not have been prouder of anyone on the face of this earth than he was of his father in that very moment.