Cat on the Scent

26

At the eastern end of Crozet, on Route 240, the large food plant, which had been through successive corporate owners, dominated the skyline. On the south side of the white buildings ran the railroad tracks, a convenience should they need carloads of grain shunted off onto sidings. These days huge trailers pulled in and out of the parking lot, a sea of macadam. Each time a driver shifted gears a squelch of diesel smoke would shoot straight upward, a smoke signal from the internal-combustion engine.

The giant refrigerator trucks hauled the frozen foods to refrigerated warehouses from whence the product made it directly to the freezer sections of supermarkets.

Loading the behemoths in the docking area plunged men from cavernous freezers into the baking temperature outside and then into the long, cold trailers. This was not the most desirable job in the United States and many a Crozet High School graduate working on that platform rued the day he had decided not to try for college.

While a lot of the town's residents worked in the food factory, just as many did not. It was odd, really, how little social impact the big corporation had on the town except for creating traffic in the morning and then again at quitting time.

For a manager on the way up, Crozet was a good stop. Most deplored the small town, calling it Podunk or some other putdown. For those who weren't southern, the jolt of Virginia life came like unexpected turbulence at twenty thousand feet. Charlottesville, offering some cultural delights, was disdained because it wasn't Chicago, a fact that Charlottesvillians were keen to perpetuate.

Wilson C. McGaughey, thirty-two, ambitious, organized, and a student of time-management schemes, daily outraged those people working in his unit. Bad enough that he mocked their speech, called them slow and inefficient; now he'd taken to putting up flow charts for the workers' edification. Next to the flow chart and the weekly productivity quota McGaughey had what his underlings dubbed the Weenie List—workers who had excelled. Two were chosen each week. Next to that was the Shit List, the names of those who did the poorest work. If your name made the Shit List three times in one year Wilson fired you. Simple as that.

The huge refrigerated units were part of Wilson McGaughey's responsibility. The freezers housed the raw foods that would be processed into turkey dinners or roast beef or linguini. Occasionally a bottle of shine or store-bought alcohol would be secreted in a back corner far from Wilson's eyes.

Dabney Shiflett, cousin to Market, didn't have a drinking problem as much as he had a specific thirst. A good worker, he nimbly sidestepped Wilson. Chewing Fisherman's Friend lozenges helped.

Dabney slipped away from the loading dock, telling his buddy he was heading to the bathroom. Instead he made straight for the meat locker in the back. He walked in and turned on the lights, revealing sides of beef hanging overhead. The back corner had a joist, slightly separated, providing the perfect place to wedge a slender flask of shine. He needed only a nip to feel wondrous warmth, a general flow of well-being. He hurried to the back, unscrewed the cap, and knocked back a healthy swallow. He opened his eyes, midpull. His mouth fell open, grain alcohol spilling onto his shirt. He dropped the flask, running flat out for the door.