CHAPTER 04 - EAMES
“You just gonna stand there?”
I couldn’t move, I could only stare at the chaos in front of me.
“A mute, eh? Useless.”
A hand waved in front of my eyes and I blinked, hard, my head shaking.
“Hello? Anyone in there?” Now the hand disappeared and a dark face replaced it, full of exasperated anger and hard lines worn by clear fatigue. “If you’re not going to help, then get the fuck out of my way.”
And then he shoved me and at the last second I flailed my hands out behind me and caught myself. “Sorry,” I stammered, getting back up and dusting myself off, still trying to process what was going on. The heat, the humidity, the scared people, the smell of burning, the suffering…
“Oh, he can talk, can he?” The man reached down and picked up a heavy case labeled ‘RATIONS.’ “Can he also pick things up and move them?”
“Uh, yeah,” I got out before dropping my backpack and rushing to help, picking up another case. It was heavy, heavy enough that my shoulders were already hurting. The other guy made it look so easy, but I knew I couldn’t go very far with this weight loading me down.
I couldn’t even remember being around such humidity. The sweat was already pooling around my lower back and I already felt like I needed a shower, and I’d just taken one on the boat an hour ago. I only vaguely knew where I was - I’d just gotten to the relief ship a couple days earlier, and this was the first time we’d actually stopped somewhere.
“Good man, now come with me.” The man led the way off the dock and toward the village.
Or what was left of a village; the only indication that there’d been a village here were piles of wood that suggested that maybe once they’d been parts of buildings. And the rubble, and the crying children. And all the other things that came with this kind of devastation.
What the fuck had I gotten myself into? I could dimly hear my father’s voice in my head, asking me if this is what I had been looking for.
We deposited our cases near a tent that was clearly being used as a makeshift hospital, before turning around and going back for more. It took hours to get them all moved, and as soon as we came back with new cases, the ones we’d left before were gone.
The only other thing the man said to me during the entire day was “lift with your legs or back won’t make it through the day, let alone the week.” I took his advice and things got a lot easier.
It was dark by the time we were done, the stacks of cases from the dock all gone. Something inside me knew that in the morning there would be more to move, whether it was cases of rations or something else. Someone made a fire and we sat around it, each of us tearing open one of the ration bags and digging in.
I was bone tired, and could barely keep myself upright as I tried to eat the completely unsatisfying food. At the same time, I knew I needed to get the fuel inside me if I was going to keep from passing out.
The other man looked at me from across the fire while we ate.
“So,” he said, staring at me. “Why did you volunteer to help in disaster relief?”
I drove through the twists and turns of the hills of northern New Hampshire a little faster than I should have, given the weather.
I didn’t know why I was going so fast, because I most definitely was not looking forward to the inevitable conversation with my father that arriving would bring.
My father had built a strong business, carrying it on his back for many years. He was the kind of man who understood the value of a hard day’s work, and reveled in it. Most of the early years running his business hadn’t involved all that much day to day management — or, rather, it had, but my father had gotten down into the trenches and worked the line along with his workers just as much as they had.
Only during the evenings had he retreated to his office to make sure the company was still running and still growing. He hadn’t been around much, but I hoped he knew how much I appreciated how much work he’d put into it. We hadn’t wanted for anything we needed growing up.
At the same time, though, the world had changed — technology and productivity had changed the game, so that people could start businesses that leapfrogged over my father’s in a short time and soon dwarfed it in size, and my father had stubbornly refused to update his company to make pace with the times.
Sure, he still had huge customers, and loyal workers, but time wasn’t on his side — the writing was on the wall.
It had taken all I was to get out of there and keep from following his footsteps in the family business. Even as a teenager walking through the assembly lines of one of his factories while he toiled away in his office, I’d known that this wasn’t for me.
The computers I’d used in school only whetted my appetite for more, and as soon as I could I bought my own and started building things. My father had dismissed all my creations as toys, expressions of creativity, but he’d never thought anything would come of it - I’d graduate from high school, maybe go to college, then start in the factory and work my way up as far as I could go — no special treatment just cause I was the old man’s son. That whole cliche of the mailroom to the board room must have been my father’s fondest dream for me.
That had never held any appeal to me. Why fight that kind of a losing battle against time and other people, when you could be on the forefront of the next wave of progress?
Of course my father and I had these conversations — we’d gone around endlessly about it. In fact, aside from cheering on the New England Patriots, we really had nothing in common, least of all our ideas about business and where the world was headed.
He’d been furious when I’d left home right after high school. He’d ranted and raved and told me in no uncertain terms that I was letting down the family by my treachery, letting down the business he’d worked so hard to build, sacrificed so much to maintain.
I didn’t want to hear any of it, and I would never have admitted to him that I understood his frustration even if I was the direct cause of it, but at the same time, it wasn’t me who was changing the face of business in America. It wasn’t me that made the internet a thing. I just wanted to be a part of it, rather than manage a building full of people making widgets for car companies.
We had never seen eye to eye on it, and I didn’t think we ever would. So what was I doing barreling toward Meridian and an inevitable clash with my father, another front in our long standing war between tradition and moving forward?
I didn’t really know. I just knew that my father’s voice had sounded different this time, and it had alarmed me, and his words still echoed in my ears — “this one time, you’re going to show up with your father calls.”
Yeah, this time I’d show up, and we’d set each other straight, I’d show him all that I’d built, tell him all about what I’d seen in my travels around the world. The people I’d helped, the lives I had made better.
Even if he didn’t understand all that, I’d show him the numbers from the business I’d built while on the road, from the computers he still hated so much. He’d have to understand that.
We’d sign a peace treaty and end this war between us one way or the other.
And then…we’d get to the other issue.
Because of course, between a father and son, there never was just one thing.
My father was old school. He’d built his business on relationships, both with his employees and his biggest customers. And sometimes sealing those relationships, inking them in ink that never ran, took a little more than just a handshake over a dinner table, or a big contract worth more money than either party could imagine.
Sometimes they involved setting up your kids together and subtly and not-so-subtly trying to push them into getting married.
I’d resisted. She’d resisted. Both of us had resisted, and lamented how super awkward all of this had been over the years. I’m sure she was a lovely girl, but we didn’t know each other, and there was no way in hell I was going to even test things out, not with our parents watching from afar and gleefully rubbing their hands together.
We saw each other at parties and joked about it every so often. Sometimes it felt like an inevitability, but I could see it in her eyes and I was sure she could see it in my eyes — neither of us wanted this.
Our parents didn’t seem to care.
Nope. Not gonna happen. Not to Eames Beckett.
I knew my father’s side of the equation - I’d kept up with news about his company during my travels. Things weren’t going nearly as well as they had in the past. People were buying fewer cars these days — ride sharing services meant that cars were lasting longer and being used more, which lowered the overall demand for cars.
Car manufacturers were, in turn, buying fewer parts, both for new cars and for repairs. My father’s business was hurting; not quite on the rocks, but things weren’t looking great.
Her family’s business was in a similar way, and made different parts that worked in conjunction with ours. If we were to merge, I knew, the company would be in a much better position to get better terms from its customers and keep things going as the dynamics of the market changed.
But like I said, my father was old school. Her’s too. Neither of them liked the idea of a merger, not without each of them having some skin in the game, something to hold over the other.
And if that had to take the form of my father’s only son and his business partner’s only daughter getting married, well, that would work out just fine.
Except I wasn’t the kind of guy to go in for a marriage of convenience, so as soon as I turned 18 I dipped right out there and headed off to the first spot the globe stopped spinning, and hadn’t stopped for almost a decade. I was running away from two things that had been decided for me without my permission — a career and a marriage — neither of which I was willing to compromise on.
And now I was headed back.
What the fuck was I doing?
Fixing this.
The twists and turns of the hills came rushing toward me as I picked up a little speed.
I just wanted to get this over with.
I looked out the windshield up at the sky, keeping one eye on the road. This storm was going to get worse before it got any better.
Hopefully I’d miss the bottom.